Hello, hi! It’s time to catch up on what happened on your screens this week! RuPaul’s Drag Race did the bi-con Whitney Houston herself justice with the queens’ of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”! Phaedra Parks is exhausted on The Traitors. Couple to Throuple reached its finale and Gabe Dunn reached the conclusion that the show never understood polyamory to begin with. Aubrey Plaza is confirmed filthy! She’s set to star in John Waters’ first film in 20 Years.
If you were on the internet this week and heard of the train wreck that was the Glasgow Willy Wonka Chocolate Experience, Kayla would just like to say that Jenny Schecter did it first. Shakina Nayfack spoke with Natalie about how Quantum Leap put the audience inside a trans experience. Arthur Bressan decided to document Pride celebrations in 1977 in the triumphant Gay USA: Snapshots of 1970s Resistance. It’s a treasure trove of queer history and it’s now available for you to own. And, listen, “Anyone but You” was a hetero hit — why does it take place at a lesbian wedding?
Drew spoke with Tricia Cooke, the lesbian activist married to a Coen Brother and the brains behind Drive-Away Dolls. She also wrote you a lesbian introduction to the Coen brothers!
The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA) gave out their annual Dorian Awards. And, drumroll… it’s the first day of March, which means that Riese is here with your monthly streaming guide! Enjoy!
Notes from the TV Team:
+ It was a mixed bag on this week’s Abbott Elementary for the queerdoes. On the plus side, the show introduced a nonbinary subsitute teacher, Mx. Geoffrey, played by Sabrina Wu. That’s *chefskiss* level casting. On the minus side, Zach and Jacob split. I’ll miss Zach — his introduction to the Abbott gang still makes me laugh hysterically — but I appreciate the representation for the messy post-break-up gays. — Natalie
+ Our non-binary pal Casey was back on The Way Home this week for the last day of their internship, and I’m starting to think they might be a little more entangled in the mystery Kat is trying to unfold than we previously thought… — Valerie Anne
Hightown 306: “Chekov’s Gun”
Written by Natalie
Jackie’s stint in rehab seems to be paying dividends, as she’s at the top of her game this week on Hightown. At work, she’s splitting time between the task force’s investigation into Owen Frawley and her own investigation into the death of Maxine McLean. Her instincts are sharp: when Ray arrives, she clocks the tension between him and Sarah and questions him about it later when they’re awaiting a meet-up with Owen. Ray seems offended that Jackie would suggest that he’d cross the line with his 25 year old undercover but she reminds him of his inappropriate relationship with Leslie Babcock. Ray assures her that things between him and Renee are good and ribs Jackie for having the audacity to bring Babcock up since she fell in love with her. The fact that Ray’s defense to inappropriate behavior is to highlight his current relationship which began as an inappropriate relationship… well, irony abounds.
Jackie agrees that Leslie was a misstep and Ray makes a point of saying, “I told ya so.” He notes how, after Charmaine’s escape, Leslie threw Jackie right under the bus. Sobriety’s offered Jackie new perspective, though, and she notes that maybe Leslie was right but Ray rejects the suggestion outright. It doesn’t matter, he says, even if what Leslie said was true, a cop doesn’t snitch on their partner. Ray’s declaration strikes me as being less about Jackie and Leslie and more a foreshadowing of what Ray will expect of Jackie if his latest missteps come to light. Jackie doesn’t respond directly, she just acknowledges that she knows he’s lying about Sarah and that she’s happy things are good between him and Renee.
Despite being told to lay low, a horny Owen comes out of hiding for a hook-up with Sarah. A local cop — unaware that they’ve stumbled on an undercover operation — spots Owen’s erratic driving and flips on his sirens. Ray calls dispatch, ordering the trailing cop to stand down, while Owen speeds up in an attempt to outrun them. Sarah encourages Owen to pull over but he resists, refusing to explain why. She appeals to his horniness and, miraculously, that seems to work. He pulls off and onto the shoulder of the highway.
The cop approaches and Owen goes silent. Sarah attempts to assuage the cop’s concerns but he persists, asking for Owen’s license and registration. Owen acquiesces, reaching into his glove box, but he grabs his gun instead. Sarah yells “gun!” which basically announces herself as a cop but it’s too late: Owen’s fired two shots into the patrolman. Owen realizes he’s been set up and turns the gun on Sarah. He’s frazzled by the arrival of more blue lights and a struggle ensues for his weapon. Owen pulls the gun away and fires a shot at Sarah before she can dive out of the car. Ray and Jackie hop out of their car to check on the downed officers. Jackie arrives just in time to hold the patrolman’s hand as he dies.
Every cop on the Cape is on the hunt for Owen and Jackie uses Owen’s previous cell pings to track down a spot where he might be hiding. She steps back into her Fisheries uniform to board a sports boat docked in Cotuit… which is definitely Owen’s boat but he’s long gone. Jackie reports back to Ray who orders her back to the station. Apparently, Jackie’s the only person doing actual police work because no one puts a tail on Owen’s uncle… which, of course, is who Owen immediately runs to looking for help. It’s all for naught, though, as his Uncle Shane puts him out of his misery and leaves the body for the cops to find.
When the news of Owen’s murder comes in, Ray orders everyone to go home, including Jackie. Before she leaves, Jackie admits that she’s going to track down leads in Fall Brook and both Alan and Ray warn her to be safe. She meets up with the cop (Tom Dolan) investigating Petey’s murder and asks for a look at his case files. As she’s looking at the details, she vocalizes all the disparate pieces of her investigation — Petey and the missing sex workers — and laments not being able to find the connection.
But when she excuses herself to go to the bathroom, she passes Dolan’s office an spots a bayonet on the wall… the same bayonet she’d seen at Petey’s house. She knows something’s amiss so Jackie snaps a picture but before she can send it, Dolan appears behind her. Jackie’s flustered by the discovery and her behavior tips Dolan off that he’s been caught. She tries to send the picture to a friend who she’s supposed to meet later but Dolan instructs her to put the phone down… and then Hightown fades to black.
NCIS: Hawai’i 303: “License to Thrill”
Written by Natalie
There was absolutely no way I was going to miss the opportunity to post this picture.
Last week, I lamented that NCIS: Hawai’i spent too much of its first episodes focusing on Jane Tennant and Sam Hanna and not nearly enough time with Kate and Lucy. This week, I got half of my wish fulfilled as Kate joined the NCIS teams, operating sans Lucy, to solve a bank truck heist by a skilled motocross crew. The team’s both aghast at the thought of someone stealing money meant for military families and a little impressed by the tactics used to pull it off.
(Sidenote: if NCIS wants to recruit agents from the other spin-offs — even the defunct ones — to visit Hawai’i, can we get a Tammy Gregorio visit? A return to Hawai’i to team up with Kate and Lucy to solve the case that’s haunted her for decades: the abduction and murder of her best friend.)
Kate can’t track down any heists with a similar MO but, building on Sam’s theory that the crew wasn’t after the money, Ernie expands the search to look at any crimes involved high octane stunts beyond motorcycles. He discovers a jewelry heist using hang gliders and a base-jumping museum burglary. Forensics from the crew’s abandoned bike traces back to a delivery to a local arena.
Kate accompanies Kai and Jesse to investigate and they discover a motorcross event that’s in town. With so many potential suspects, Kate suggests they split up but Kai and Jesse suggest that maybe she’s a tad overdressed for this assignment. She glances around, sees their point and immediately heads off to buy some more conspicious clothing. I was completely unprepared for Kate Whistler to return in a hoodie and beanie, slurping on an Icee. The story they’re fed is that bikes were stolen and a conveniently time camera outage suggests it was an inside job. Kate gets the employment roster from the road manager and they head back to HQ to investigate further.
Later that night, they follow the motocross suspects to a bar and one (Xavier) basically announces himself as a culprit. Kai connects Xavier to his girlfriend who works at the credit union that was robbed. While tracking down the girlfriend, Kai and Kate talk about their personal daredevil experiences. Kate admits that she’s been skydiving (a few times), bungee jumping, hang gliding, and cage diving with sharks.
“Really?” Kai responds, clearly just as shocked as the rest of us. “I never would have guessed.”
Kate’s shocked that Kai’s shocked. She asks, “Why? I’m fun. I mean, don’t I seem fun?”
Before Kai can fall into that trap, he spots their suspect who takes off when they announce themselves. It looks like Xavier’s going to escape but then he gets hit by a garbage truck like he’s some British lesbian or something. Tennant uses the girlfriend to get more information on the other suspects and, eventually, the team takes down the crew.
Hopefully, Kate’s shed a bit of her uptight mystique this week… and maybe next week, when Lucy and Kate go undercover at a resort, Lucy can teach Kate that things can be fun that don’t involve testing the limits of gravity.
Good Trouble 519: “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”
Written by Natalie
It’s the penultimate episode of Good Trouble, the second to last hour we’ll ever spend in the Fosters-verse. It should be a moment of melancholy — a decade of nostalgia flooding in — but instead, I’m just annoyed. Annoyed this show continues to waste so much time on this cult storyline, annoyed that they’re bringing back old characters and introducing new ones… just annoyed. It’s hard to focus on the good and gay, but I’ll try!
Though the network’s thrilled with the Ferrets & Friends scripts, they want to add a new element to the show: a live host! And it’s not just any host, it’s Derek, the star of the network’s other animal-centric show, Hiss & Hers, and Alice’s nemesis from her days in the CBTV diversity program. The network rep asks Alice to smooth things over with her fellow writers but Alice wonders who’s going to smooth things over with her.
In the room, though, Alice responds to the guys’ skepticism with feigned enthusiasm over Derek’s hiring. The team’s not buying it and when Derek saunters in the room, demanding rewrites of the scripts, they’re even less enthused. When Derek leaves, Morty, Murray, and Morrie demand that Alice, as the team leader, do something. Back at the Coterie, she laments to Sumi that she doesn’t know what to do. Sumi reminds her that the network signs her checks but Alice pushes back: she has to advocate for her team. Sumi encourages her to stand up to Derek and, if that doesn’t work, pitch the network a different (and better) host.
You can almost see the light bulb go off over Alice’s head.
She returns to the writers’ room the next day and announces that there are no script changes for Derek. Everyone else is happy with the script so he should just read the lines as written. Derek responds with a tantrum: for once, he finally gets to do what he wants. He storms out of the room and threatens to call his agent. The writers applaud Alice’s leadership, but worry how the network will respond. Alice promises to explain that Derek wasn’t going to work and offer the network a better option: herself.
Meanwhile, Tracy approaches Malika at the office and suggests they disrupt Councilman Hauss’ upcoming townhall in one last-ditch effort to derail his quest to become council president. Tracy expects her to jump on the opportunity but instead, Malika just promises to think about it. Later, she runs into Hauss at the elevator and inquires about his upcoming townhall. He asks if she’ll be attending and Malika responds that it depends on if he delivers on his promise to back the women’s center. He assures her he’ll back the proposal but she wants that assurance in writing before the townhall. Hauss promises to deliver.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well Good Trouble has handled its foray into politics — lots of shows get the experience very, very wrong — but this feels like a fourth quarter fumble. It’s hard enough to buy that Hauss would make this offer, particularly since there’s been no mention of his candidacy facing opposition, but Lucia’s absence in Malika’s negotiations is a misstep. After their earlier conversation, Malika would have to involve her. Maybe we’ll see it next week?
But the hardest part of Malika’s day awaits her at home: Isaac greets her outside her loft and apologizes for his behavior, including stealing Mariana’s pills. He promises to get back on his meds and asks if he can return to the Coterie. Much to my surprise, Malika says no. She insists that he needs more help than she or the Coterie can provide. She encourages him to come clean to his family and consider going back to rehab. Isaac doesn’t respond — the tears in his eyes say enough — and he grabs his suitcase and walks out of the Coterie again.
Death and Other Details Episode 108: “Vanishing”
Written by Valerie Anne
I get why the blackout was good for the story but let us use our imagination and light the shots better I BEG.
We begin where we ended, with Imogene confronting Celia Chun about being her mother’s witness, but before we can go past this moment, we flash back to an hour ago, when Eleanor tells her grandmother that Anna should still be the CEO of Collier Mills. Mrs. Chun says appointing a CEO is a fool’s errand, because she doesn’t intend for there to be anything left to run soon enough.
After the power goes out and Teddy goes into Business Mode, Anna stomps after her and demands to know why the backup generators haven’t kicked in. Teddy asks how she seems unfazed that someone she’s known her whole life is dead but… Anna didn’t know. Anna runs off and finds Imogene, who confirms it. Anna is shook, but Imogene prods: is there anything Anna knows that could help them with the investigation. Anna swears Imogene knows everything she does.
Meanwhile, Leila floats through the ship with a handheld lantern like a ghost. She runs into Eleanor and they briefly exchange unpleasantries. She finds Trip and asks where Anna is, but he’s wallowing in his grief and is largely unhelpful.
The Inspector gathers everyone on the ship into the ballroom to keep an eye on everyone until her backup arrives, and Anna and Leila are finally reunited. Anna tells Leila she loves her and begs her to not divorce her, but in response Leila turns on her heel and plops herself at the Chun family’s table, right next to Eleanor.
Anna joins them and makes a case for herself as CEO, saying everyone will expect a Collier to be in charge, and that’s when Mrs. Chun reveals that Anna isn’t technically a Collier. The priest was not Katherine Collier’s first affair; Llewellyn is Anna’s biological father.
Now we’ve caught up to Imogene confronting Mrs. Chun. Chun tells them how she and her husband worked at the factory, and he died from Captionem Blue poisoning after Collier Mills took over. Mrs. Chun took her hush money and dedicated her life to taking the Colliers down.
They realize all roads point back to Lawrence Collier, so Imogene runs off to find him, Anna on her heels. When she confronts him, Lawrence calls her by her mother’s name and Anna reveals that he has early onset dementia. Imogene leans into his hallucination, and he confesses that he had Kira killed.
What’s more, Winnie figured out someone poisoned Llewellyn’s wine… wine sent by Katherine Collier. Leila thinks Katherine IS Viktor Sams, but when Anna’s scream rips through the night, everyone runs outside to find Katherine dead in the pool. While this is happening, Sunil is trying to get the power back on… and finds a bomb instead.
A helicopter arrives, but it’s not the Inspector’s backup. It’s military-esque men that were surely sent by Viktor Sams. The leader of these nogoodniks says to gather the guests to play a game. And something tells me they don’t want to play Clue.
I wish to say a couple of things about Death and Other Details.
1. The theory has been advanced that Lawrence didn’t have Kira, he simply said that he made a phone call. That he called the governor, when she was a prosecutor, and had her quash the investigation. Put a pin in that, it’ll be important to my next point.
2. I think that Celia Chun is Victor Sams. She’s acquired enough money, in about 20 years mind, to go from being a factory worker to someone who can spend a billion dollars to buy the Collier’s business. That’s generational wealth, unless…you acquire it illegally. Such as by blackmailing a whole bunch of people. Kind of weird that Celia knew that Llewellyn was Anna’s father. That’s not something you find out by looking through their finances.
Let’s also look at the people that have been killed so far.
– Kira: the woman who promised Celia that they’d get justice for her husband, then just dropped the case.
– Keith: the man who started looking into Victor Sams.
– Alexandra: the woman who, as prosecutor, dropped the whistleblowing case against the Colliers.
– Llewellynn: the lawyer who covered up the Colliers’ criminal acts.
– Katherine: one of the Colliers responsible for her husband’s death.
Celia Chun may be Victor Sams, but she learned Llewellyn was Anna’s father from the Rev.
I’m sad about Good Trouble ending. I still love the cast, even if not all the stories are gripping. At times, the show had a tendency to drag storylines past their expiration date. It’s good to know when to let a storyline end.
What’s rough about these final episodes is that it is clear the producers and cast were not aware the show was being cancelled. I think I read somewhere they had to beg and ask for the cast and crew to come back and film additional scenes to actually give everything a series finale vibe. If they had known in advance the show was ending, I would like to think they would have wrapped some stuff earlier and worked towards series finale.
This reminds me of Tyler Perry’s The Haves and the Have Nots. Not sure what happened behind the scenes there but it seems as it was a sudden cancellation as the last season kept introducing new characters and plotlines that ended up going nowhere (which, I know, it’s a Tyler Perry show and all the scenes last 10 minutes and go nowhere). In the end, it felt like he was upset, threw away whatever season ending script he had and wrote a series finale where every character… dies. Horribly. Violently.
But hopefully Good Trouble gets a happy ending. And if they can make me cry once or twice, I will be happy.