To L and Back Podcast Interrogation Tapes Episode and Guess What We’re Going Live Tomorrow

Hello friends! Today we bring you a very special BONUS EPISODE of everyone’s favorite L Word podcast To L and Back in which we recap the interrogation tapes (you can watch them yourself on YouTube) but also we bring important news that tomorrow evening (or morning or afternoon depending on your time zone) we are going LIVE and you should really truly come so we can all have fun and I will feel successful as a person. The event will be full of your favorite friends of the pod! El Sanchez, Drew Gregory, Brittani Nichols, Laura Zak, Cerise Castle, Brittany Ashley, John Bellamy, Kelley Quinn, Fawzia Mirza, Erin Sullivan and Analyssa Lopez!

Okay so we’ll see you there right? Now for our special ep!

The usual:


Riese: Hi, everyone! Guess what? Tomorrow, June 1st, at 6pm PST, 9pm EST, we are doing a very special live episode of To L and Back on the internet, starring so many of your favorite friends from the pod. You can read all about it on our Instagram, and you can also see more about it in the Autostraddle post that will go up with this podcast. It’s going to be so much fun. It’s going to be a surprise what exactly we’re doing, but as you can see we have a very large cast, and you will not want to miss it. So you can RSVP at the link in our Instagram bio or on Autostraddle, and it is free with a suggested donation, if you do want to donate, to the National Bail Out. And we hope to see you all there because it’s going to be really awesome.

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Riese: The interrogation tapes.

Carly: We are back, doing more of this. And it’s time to get weird. These are so weird.

Riese: Because they sure did.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: These are so weird, and I would also say — surprise! — bad.

Carly: Yep, shocker. What do we know about these interrogation tapes? These were released right along with the finale of the series, am I right?

Riese: Yeah, I think it was after the finale. If I recall correctly, they were releasing them one by one over a certain period of time. Because I remember those were some of the earliest things we had written about on Autostraddle. It was in the early days of the Daily Fix, when we had our daily link roundup, whenever there was an interrogation tape, we’d be like, “Shane’s interrogation tape.”

Carly: A new one dropped.

Riese: Yeah, it was a good headliner.

Carly: Yeah! These were on Showtime’s website and they don’t exist there anymore, but some amazing fans have uploaded them to YouTube which is how we watched them.

Riese: There’s no shortage.

Carly: They’re all on YouTube, just search for “L Word interrogation tapes,” you can watch them, too. If you need to pause this and go watch them before you come back, that’s fine, we’ll be here. But we do have a lot to cover today. We have a lot of information.

Riese: I would argue maybe some information that we could’ve received earlier.

Carly: You mean in the show itself?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: You mean maybe they spent an entire season on this completely weird concocted murder story line, when in fact they could have been spending any of that time on any of the things these people mentioned in these interrogation tapes?

Riese: Oh yeah. Once again, I have some notes for the team.

Carly: Oh yes! We’ve got notes.

Riese: Once again I have some notes for the team. These were supposed to build up, I guess, to The Farm, which is the thwarted L Word spinoff set in prison. Although, I don’t think they do a very good job of that either, if I’m being honest.

Carly: No, I would argue that these don’t really do much of anything.

Riese: No, they don’t.

Carly: Other than confuse people.

Riese: But you know what? Everyone was lit.

Carly: They were.

Riese: Everyone, their lighting, there were big lights.

Carly: Was this where all the lighting budget for the whole season went, to the ancillary content?

Riese: Yes. And if you zoom out, there’s just a bunch of little desk lamps clipped all over, like a breadboard, thing, you know what I mean? It’s like, “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” And they’re like, “Xena, you’re in the light!” [crosstalk 00:03:07], but every clip on desk lamp. And then clip them all above this…

Carly: They went to Target and bought every clip-on desk lamp, and then clipped them all about the set.

Riese: Yeah, they went to the kid’s section and got a unicorn lamp, a seahorse lamp, and they were like, “Boom, boom, boom, boom, now we can see you.” Because that’s what they’re revealing at the end of the season, is what do these people’s faces look like? We didn’t know.

Carly: Right, because you forgot. We haven’t seen them since season five.

Riese: No we haven’t. So this is sort of like, “Oh wow, Tina looks great.” Hate to say it, but it’s true.

Carly: Sometimes we will be honest about Tina.

Riese: All right. We don’t know who wrote these, and honestly, we don’t care. So—

Carly: My—

Riese: Suspicion?

Carly: My suspicion is that Ilene wrote and directed these, they were just additional pieces of interrogation that weren’t used in the episode or something? Because pieces of these are in the episode. Stuff that Alice is saying is exactly the same footage that’s in the finale. So I feel like maybe it was just either cut from the episodes, maybe her… Maybe Ilene’s plan was to have longer interrogations in them, or was just like, “Let me just shoot longer versions, and then we can use them online.” I don’t know.

Carly: But since they’re pretty much identical to what’s in the show, look-wise, and some of the actual dialogue is the same, I’m guessing it was probably also written and directed by Ilene.

Riese: Yeah, that’s true. I was imagining if it was an intern project. Like they had some —

Carly: It feels like an intern project.

Riese: They had some Showtime intern who didn’t… Who was like, “I didn’t really get to do anything this season.” And they’re like, “Ah, you want to make a…” Because in 2009, being like, “You want to make a spinoff series for the web,” was the ultimate insult, but it was also something that one must accept. They were always doing that shit.

Carly: Yeah. They were like, “Of course I will, but I don’t want to, but I will.” It’s the same as it is now. I’m kidding, I’m kidding.

Riese: So should we get into it?

Carly: Yeah, let’s get into it.

Riese: So the first thing I’d like to note is that there is a date.

Carly: There sure is a date. I wrote this date down because I wanted to talk to you about how this date fits into your exhaustive timeline investigation that we went over in the finale episode.

Riese: Right. So it is January 18th, 2009. There’s a few things about this. It does, in a way, fit into the timeline where maybe an election happened. Maybe. Because I mean that would have been in November. However, it’s still a stretch because as we covered this, we’re looking at one to two months, so if this was two months, then maybe… It’s still tough. It still doesn’t fit. But aside from that, more monumentally and more egregious to me is the fact that if this is taking place on January 18th, 2009, that means that the holiday known as Christmas did occur during season six.

Carly: And we didn’t get a special holiday episode!

Riese: And we didn’t get a fucking Christmas episode, which is, again, all I ever wanted from this goddamn show, besides to work for it. Which I am definitely putting in a strong bid for that, because of all the nice things they say about it.

Carly: We just want it to do better, but it’s in the past.

Riese: Yeah, it’s loving criticism. So yeah, we could have had some people running through the snow on a sleigh, or —

Carly: Decorating a tree. Lighting a menorah, I don’t know.

Riese: Yeah. They could have lit a menorah, they could have built a menorah out of FIMO.

Carly: They could have.

Riese: … and then baked it in the oven, and then they could have been like, “Oh, it’s the Maccabees eight nights,” or whatever.

Carly: Totally.

Riese: And everyone could have had potatoes, which everyone loves, potatoes. Especially Tasha and Jamie.

Carly: As we know, famously.

Riese: As we know, famously.

Carly: They love potatoes.

Riese: Especially Tasha and Jamie, big potato fans!

Carly: Especially the potato offerings at The Planet in West Hollywood.

Riese: Yes, they loved those wedge fries, or whatever.

Carly: The other thing I noticed on the little title cards that preceded each of these, is that these interviews were conducted by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, not the Los Angeles Police Department, except Bette’s said LAPD and the rest say LASD.

Riese: Really?

Carly: And I’m guessing that was just an oversight, I don’t think there’s anything to read into there. But whatever intern made those cards, they really threw me for a loop.

Riese: We salute you. The other thing I noticed about the cards was that each person was introduced as a suspect. So, suspect number blah, blah, blah. And that’s not even how it works.

Carly: These are barely persons of interest. And again, I’m basing this purely on my knowledge of true crime documentaries and Law and Order.

Riese: Yeah, same, which is — yeah, right.

Carly: Which is to say that I am basically an expert, but none of these people are actually suspects.

Riese: Mm-mm (negative).

Carly: And I know we talked about this in the finale and we are going to spend a lot of time on it today, but most of these questions are not questions that would be asked in an investigation about the death of one Jennifer Schecter.

Riese: None of them are!

Carly: None of them are, in fact, are.

Riese: None of them. There was not a single relevant question.

Carly: None.

Riese: Also, who’s that dude? Okay, well, let’s get started.

Carly: Let’s get into it.

Riese: The first one I watched was Tina.

Carly: Me too.

Riese: Maybe we watched the same playlist. So I have Tina, Shane—

Carly: Helena, Niki, Max, Alice twice, and Bette.

Riese: Yes, exactly the same playlist. Perfect. So we are going to begin with the Tina tape.

Carly: Tina tape.

Riese: And I’m glad we’re starting here, because this is the one for which I have the most notes.

Carly: Perfect, it’s a great place to start.

Riese: Tina, up until this point, has had how much backstory?

Carly: I would say virtually none.

Riese: Zero. We have been tracking Tina’s backstory, like the little intelligent hawks that we are. I don’t want to say hawks, that’s kind of like war. Intelligent doves that we are—

Carly: Thank you, peaceful.

Riese: … the little tiny Sherlocks with our little tiny glasses—

Carly: Our magnifying glasses—

Riese: … we have been noting—

Carly: I’m wearing the fake mustache in this version of things, I’m an inspector.

Riese: Yeah, you have Max’s mustache, it’s been given to you, as a gift.

Carly: Thank you, thank you.

Riese: From the set. Yeah, try to sell it on eBay. I’ll buy it.

Carly: No, I’m going to keep it for myself.

Riese: And we have been noting every time, and what we have noted is that, I think, Tina said she grew up in the suburbs.

Carly: I think that’s all we got out of Tina ever.

Riese: I feel that there was one other tidbit, but I cannot recall what it is.

Carly: Well, it probably wasn’t very significant.

Riese: I think maybe she said her parents were divorced? Anyway, the tape begins with Xena asking Tina — Xena, Tina!

Carly: Xena, Tina.

Lucy Lawless: And why is Kelly not a threat?

Carly: I just wrote, “LOL, what?”

Riese: Which is not… Who cares? What does this have to do—

Carly: Is Kelly a suspect? What the fuck?

Riese: I mean, please. Arrest her. She sucked, I hated her character, I hated her storyline. Maybe it was Woozy. Maybe Woozy came in, “I’m going to fix the railings, blah, blah, blah.” And then was like, “Get out of my way!” And pushed Jenny into the pool.

Carly: I think that Woozy is the prime suspect.

Riese: “I hate women!” Right, where is she? Where is she? Is she finger blasting five men in the butt all at once? What is she doing? Get her in here.

Carly: She’s at the Abbey in the men’s room.

Riese: She’s in the Abbey trolling for a hookup, just waiting.

Carly: So Tina, okay. Tina tells us that her mother once told her, this mother we’ve heard of before:

Tina: The only true intimacy between two people is when you read poetry. And so the only true act of betrayal is when you share poetry with someone other than your beloved.

Riese: What!

Carly: What the actual fuck is this?

Riese: What!

Carly: Also I would like to draw your attention, Tina, to season one. Bette was not sharing poetry with Candace.

Riese: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So why was that such a big deal, why’d you flip the fucking table?

Carly: Tina really flipped the fuck out over that affair, rightfully so, but that was, according to this conversation, does not fall into the criteria of betrayal, according to Tina and her mother.

Riese: And I’ll tell you what though, for sure Henry and Tina did not read any poetry, so maybe she’s just trying to save her own ass here.

Carly: I think so, yeah. This is, yeah.

Riese: Henry would have been like, “Hop on pop.”

Carly: “I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam I am.” And Tina strokes his face and then he clips his fingernails and she kisses him.

Riese: Do you think—

Carly: Oh, I just died. A little bit.

Riese: Do you think every night in bed Tina’s like, “So do you want to read some limericks?” And then Bette pulls out her little book of limericks, and they’re like, “There once was a man from Nantucket.”

Carly: For some weird reason, what just popped into my head is that storyline in that first Sex and the City movie, which is 17 hours long, about how Mr. Big keeps sending her poetry from that book—

Riese: Oh yeah.

Carly: … and it goes to her secret locked folder of her inbox that she has to get the password to, which she can’t get the password to it, because Jennifer Hudson’s back in St. Louis, and so she guesses that the password is “love” and it is.

Riese: Oh my God! Oh my God!

Carly: Also sorry, spoiler alert for such an incredible film.

Riese: Oh my God. Maybe they were doing haikus.

Carly: Oh, that’s fun. Haikus are fun.

Riese: Maybe they’re doing — you know the Jabberwocky poem?

Carly: Oh yeah.

Riese: Maybe they’re doing the poem “Cats,” which was based on the musical Cats. That TS Eliot poem.

Carly: That actually would be great. Finding a way to tie this to the Cats film of late 2019 would be ideal. I think that would be really cool.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: If anybody wants to do edits and some sort of mash-up, please send it to us.

Riese: Yeah, please send it to us.

Carly: So her father had an affair with a, quote, “pretty, young law student.” And her mom didn’t mind. Because they weren’t sharing poetry.

Riese: Her mom, who by the way, is dead. We have talked, not we, because we didn’t write this, let’s make that clear. The show has talked a lot about Bette’s mom being dead. It has been a consistent topic and point of interest for Bette and her backstory, and never once in the entire series, did Tina participate in those conversations like somebody whose mom was also dead. And somebody whose dad also cheated on her mom. These are two things.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And also as somebody who lost their father when I was a teenager, if I was dating someone who had a similar experience— That would be huge, it would be such a… It would be, honestly, like a core element of our bond to each other.

Carly: Yeah, absolutely.

Riese: This would also explain so much about what draws them together, and what draws them together as how they want to start a family and be parents.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: There’s no way that they decided any of this until they were at this tape, is what I’m saying.

Carly: But instead, we get an info dump about everything about Tina’s family in this three minute video.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And so her dad was a right-wing politician. This just gets more and more bananas.

Carly: He was a three-term mayor of a town in Arizona, his campaign manager was not attractive.

Tina: Dottie Arbuckle. Not a pretty woman, let me tell you.

Carly: But they talked about poetry late at night, and that made her mom really upset. But not the affair with the pretty, young law student. Wow.

Riese: Right. Dottie would send him home with a poem, and I mean, I’ve dated men, you don’t send men home with poems.

Carly: Oh God, he’s going to lose it in his pocket, his pocket… It’s going to go in the wash, it’s going to get…

Riese: Yeah. It’s going to get all messed up and they’re going to be like, “Well, there goes your Yeats for the day.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Maybe it was Sylvia Plath? Maybe what Dottie was trying to say was, “You’re making me depressed.”

Carly: I mean, yes. That would be more appropriate. And then her mother was like, “Please stop with the poetry readings,” and he would not. He would not. He was like, “No, Shel Silverstein and I need to keep doing this.”

Riese: Yeah, yeah. We’re going to find out where the fucking side walk ends if it’s the death of me, all right?

Carly: Oh, we are, oh man.

Riese: We are. So it turns out that Tina has two siblings?

Carly: Aha. Her mom took the kids, “all three of us,” and they moved to Atlanta.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: But wait, there’s more. There’s a lot more. But before we get there, we have to talk about Jenny, because remember, Jenny is the one who died. Oh right, let’s talk about Jenny.

Riese: Tina and Jenny got very close during filming.

Carly: Yes, they did. Did they share poetry?

Riese: Maybe, maybe. Maybe they were reading Allen Ginsberg.

Carly: Maybe.

Riese: Maybe Johnny was sending Tina home—

Carly: With Allen Ginsberg tucked into her pocket.

Riese: Yeah, with a little Mary Oliver.

Carly: Here, have a little Mary Oliver for your drive home.

Riese: Slip in a little Mary Oliver into her back pocket. Maybe some Maya Angelou. You never know.

Carly: You never know with Tina. Or Jenny, really, either of them.

Riese: Or Jenny.

Carly: So Jenny would ask Tina to come to her trailer after they would wrap shooting, and they’d share a bottle of wine and talk about… Jenny would pry into Tina’s personal life and Tina felt, not manipulated by her, but just that she was somebody that she would want to share things with. And she thought that Jenny was just trying to get a study of lesbian relationships so she could make a better movie.

Riese: But the movie was already written.

Carly: The movie was already written, they were in the middle of production. And also, honestly I think what Tina’s describing is friendship?

Riese: I think so, too, yeah.

Carly: When you hang out and drink a bottle of wine and talk about yourself?

Riese: When you drink a bottle of wine and talk about your life, yeah. I think that’s friendship. Although apparently Tina has not talked about herself to anyone. Ever.

Carly: Not even to Bette.

Riese: Not even to Bette. So then they ask, “Was Bette your first?” And she says, no. Bette wasn’t her first but that’s what she told everyone.

Carly: And Bette.

Riese: Her first was her older sister. They would do role play. Tina would be the boy. This started when Tina was 12, I think she said?

Carly: And it went on for three years and she thought it was just what kids do.

Riese: Again, I don’t think they made this choice until they wrote this video. Again, I don’t know if that would have been something her and Jenny maybe would have talked about, as they developed their friendship. I don’t know why this was something that she didn’t tell Bette for the now 10 years or something they’ve been together, but she’s telling Xena the Warrior Princess and this random dude, right now, in an interrogation on a totally unrelated subject. And also it’s just a very weird choice for the writers to make, I think especially looking at the legacy of how this show has dealt with sexual abuse, how at first with Jenny, I think they were doing something really interesting and authentic, and then to have it spin out and, at this point having her be a psychopath who her friends wanted to murder, is pretty irresponsible and obviously everybody is entitled to frame and to deal with and to cope with their sexual abuse in a way that makes sense to them and contextualize it in a way that makes sense to them, but I think this is presented — I felt like, in my experience, this was presented in a way that deserved a lot more context, and also framing it as this was her lying to Bette about what her real first time was, because of — you know, again, everybody can contextualize their own experiences the way they want to, but I think as a choice for writers to make of what they’re presenting to the world, having her contextualize rape as her first time, and as something she should have told Bette but never told Bette, for that reason is just really fucked up, and I just really wish that if this is what they had in mind for her, that it would have been talked about earlier, and I think they could have done interesting things with it that would have really resonated with people, and so this was a really disappointing, I think, way to present that information. You know what I mean?

Carly: No, this was so—

Riese: Fucked up?

Carly: … fucking weird and, yes, fucked up. And then Tina says, “It’s funny, because I don’t even speak to her anymore. She lives in Texas, she’s born again, she thinks I’m going straight to hell.”

Riese: I mean, that fucks you up. That fucks you up. So there were these endless depths to Tina that we never heard anything about. Never heard about her parents as she was discussing parenthood. Never heard about her abuse as her friend was dealing with her childhood abuse. Never said anything to Bette. Her and Bette’s relationship sucks, Bette doesn’t know anything. And also, her first time was with Bette.

Carly: Yeah. Oh my God.

Riese: So that is about as deep as this all gets, huh?

Carly: Guess so.

Riese: So how would you rate this particular tape on a scale of one to ten?

Carly: Ten being the best?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: Two.

Riese: Yeah, I think I give it a hard two.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And a soft one.

Carly: I would say a nine, in terms of information.

Riese: Yeah, this is a lot of information.

Carly: But a two in terms of content. If that makes sense?

Riese: Yeah. I do think that “the only true intimacy between two people is when you read poetry together, and betrayal is when you read poetry with someone besides your beloved” is one of the stupidest things that this show has ever said, and that is saying a lot.

Carly: Especially for how much time the show spent on Tina being angry at Bette for cheating on her in season one. That had ripple effects that lasted six seasons.

Riese: Why didn’t this come up at the campfire, on the Pink Ride, when everybody was like, “What do you think is cheating?” And Tasha was like, “Thinking is cheating.” Shane was like, “Sex is cheating.” Why wasn’t Tina like, “Oh, everyone — Tina thinks it’s reading poetry with someone other than your beloved.” And then everybody would have been like—

Carly: What?

Riese: What? And then Jodi would have ran off just out of disgust that she was even friends with any of these people, and never would have found out. Now we move on to Shane.

Carly: Shane. So it starts with Xena asking her who she is closest to and she says Alice because she’s known her the longest. And how they met is that Shane was working at a hair salon and she washed Alice’s hair.

Riese: John James?

Carly: John James.

Riese: John James Salon, so a lot of thought went into that.

Carly: Yeah, definitely. That’s how they met, because she was the person that washed her hair. And Alice asked her out for coffee afterwards, and Shane was like, “She’s just trying to pump me for information.” I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about, but I guess the whole vibe here is that Alice was a serious gossip from day one. That wacky Alice.

Riese: Wild Alice. Anyway, the thing is that Shane’s meant to be alone?

Carly: Yeah. She makes a good friend, but not a good girlfriend.

Riese: Yeah, we know that.

Carly: We really know that already.

Riese: Yeah. She and Jenny had a special connection, they understood each other.

Carly: Mm-hmm (affirmative). She hasn’t had a connection like that with anybody else.

Riese: Mm-mm (negative), she hasn’t. “Did you love her?” she asks. And she says, “I did love her.”

Carly: She asks if she trusted her.

Riese: No. Not at the end, she didn’t trust her anymore.

Carly: No, she wanted to trust her.

Riese: She wanted to trust her but she couldn’t because the writer’s didn’t want that for them.

Carly: No, no. And then she says that they knew everything about each other. But then it’s implied that Jenny did not know everything about Shane.

Riese: Mm-mm (negative).

Carly: Interesting.

Shane: Just curious, what is your statute of limitation on arson?

Riese: What’s your statute of limitation on arson?

Carly: The guy’s like, “One year,” and she says:

Shane: That’s not much.

Riese: Oh, alright, I guess I could have told you this four months ago. She says it was 18 months ago that she set her place of work, Wax… on fire! So this, again, this means that season four ended 18 months ago. So the past 18 months contained all of season five?

Carly: Yeah. I feel like I’m going to… Next time I go to hang out with you, you’re going to have one of those investigational walls with the red string where you’re trying to plot out the timeline of the show, because we’ve gotten a little bit more information here.

Riese: We have.

Carly: And I don’t want you to go down that path.

Riese: I might.

Carly: I don’t want that for you.

Riese: I might.

Carly: I know you might.

Riese: I might want to.

Carly: So anyway, that’s a big info dump. Shane burned down Wax.

Riese: Yeah. And what this shows, I think, is that if Shane burned down Wax, then Shane easily could have done whatever to Jenny who, however she died, in the pool.

Carly: Because as we know, no cause of death was ever determined for this character.

Riese: Why are they even asking all her friends, who were in other locations during the murder, questions, when they could have just gone and seen if the tape on the railing was broken? And how it broke. They could have brought in a railing tape expert.

Carly: Which would obviously be Weezie, Weezie the railing tape expert.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: “Yeah, I buy all kinds of tape.”

Riese: “Sorry, I was giving oral to a man in the bathroom on a train.” You know what I mean?

Carly: Anyway, that’s Shane’s whole thing.

Riese: Scale of one to ten, Shane, I give it a two.

Carly: Yeah, also a two.

Riese: Another two.

Carly: I feel like the thing I’ve learned from all my years watching investigatory television, is that the most likely suspect, the person they go after first, as the suspect when someone dies or goes missing, is the spouse, or the partner. And Shane was the most recent partner. In fact, Jenny didn’t know that they weren’t together, only Shane knew that she had, in her mind, broken up with her moments before she was found dead.

Riese: Right.

Carly: So why were they not talking about anything that would be about Shane’s state of mind about Jenny and… They don’t really get… Anyway, whatever. I don’t know why I’m trying to make this make sense.

Riese: Yeah. I mean also, again, as we’ve covered extensively, and I think repeated several times in the last episode, the only logical explanation for what happened is that she fell on accident or that she—

Carly: Committed suicide.

Riese: Killed herself. And even then, we’re not exactly sure how she pulled it off.

Carly: No, because it doesn’t really make sense, and also we still don’t know what the actual cause of death was, because they didn’t write one into the script.

Riese: Right. There was a part in a podcast episode where you’re like, “She could’ve just stood up and walked out of the pool.” I was like, “Oh, God! Argh!”

Carly: But right, it’s probably a pretty shallow pool.

Riese: I hadn’t even thought of that, but she could’ve fucking… Yeah, she could have just stood up and walked out of the goddamn pool, if she fell in the pool. It wasn’t that long of a drop!

Carly: No, it wasn’t that long of a drop and even if it was the shallow end that she fell into and she fell in head first, then there would be blood or something more traumatic at the scene — I cannot believe we are still talking about this, but I also can.

Riese: Just so you guys know, the statute of limitation for arson in California is actually three years, six years, or no time limit.

Carly: So Shane just confessed to a crime of her own volition.

Riese: Maybe Shane should be going to the farm. Maybe the spinoff should be about Shane going to the farm for arson.

Carly: Known arsonist.

Riese: Yeah, yeah. Famous arsonist. You’ve seen her around town, you’ve seen the flyers, you’ve seen the banner, you’ve seen the auctioning off of Niki to Shane in a public forum.

Carly: Publicly.

Riese: But now you see her for who she truly is.

Carly: An arsonist. You thought Bette Porter was the arsonist—

Riese: Fire starter.

Carly: Arson, arson, but that’s not the case.

Riese: Right, that was a red herring. Arson, arson was a red herring.

Carly: Arson, arson was a red herring!

Riese: What will she burn down next?

Carly: This police station?

Riese: Maybe.

Carly: Bette’s house? Who knows. Jenny’s shed? Maybe.

Riese: Yeah, Jenny’s shed in flammable as hell, that thing would just… Go up in flames, yeah.

Riese: Now we go to Helena.

Carly: Helena Peabody. It starts with her saying—

Riese: They didn’t even mention Jenny, right? Jenny doesn’t come up.

Carly: Jenny does not come up once in this conversation. And all that’s happening is that Helena and Lucy Lawless are clearly about to have sex with each other.

Riese: Yeah, they’re just flirting. Honestly, okay, she says… Like we saw in the finale, she never knew how to be with people, she’d buy and sell people, but she said Alice was the first real friend she ever had to care for without wanting things in return. Which, that’s sweet. That’s interesting to hear.

Carly: That is interesting to hear.

Riese: That is information, that again, we would have enjoyed earlier.

Carly: Yes. You know what else is really interesting?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative)?

Carly: You remember Catherine?

Riese: You remember Catherine you guys?

Carly: You remember Catherine?

Riese: Skinny little Catherine?

Carly: Crazy little Catherine?

Riese: Slender, slender gambler, poker star Catherine?

Carly: As a surprise to everyone, and no one.

Helena: Catherine was this big George Bush Republican, she was a free market capitalist. She was a social conservative.

Carly: Of course she is. So to really stick it to her, Helena did not hide the money. She hated Catherine, and therefore donated all that money to progressive causes.

Riese: Right. And then she just sort of reads off all of…

Carly: A list of places.

Riese: And she’s probably still exhausted by reading off all the characters that were ever in The L Word.

Carly: Yeah, exactly.

Riese: Planned Parenthood, V Day, Equality Now, National Center for Lesbian Rights, you know?

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: So that is great, but also she couldn’t… You can’t donate stolen money to a nonprofit because you’re putting them at risk of having the funding taken back if it’s found out that it was stolen money, so.

Carly: Right. And she just confessed to it, to officers of the law or whatever the fuck. So yeah. Now everyone’s in trouble.

Riese: Officers of the law, you know what I mean when I say officers of the law. I mean warrior princesses, I mean that random dumb dude, who’s still sitting in there like a moron.

Carly: And that’s the only people I’m referring to.

Riese: This was the only part of any of these tapes that was even somewhat deep, is that Xena’s like, “Why do you think these people are drawn to you?” or whatever. And Xena seems to be flirting as an interrogation technique, right?

Carly: Yes.

Riese: But Helena doesn’t see that, she just reads it as—

Carly: Helena is just horny.

Riese: Yeah, yeah. Helena reads it as genuine flirting, because she’s like, “It could be that you’re just breathtaking.” And Helena, hook, line and sinker immediately is like, “Yeah, we’re doing this.”

Carly: Helena’s like, “We’re going to fuck.”

Riese: And it’s kind of sad because it’s like yeah, she still doesn’t really know how to read people.

Carly: No, she hasn’t learned anything, which is really sad.

Riese: Yeah, it is. Also I think maybe because she’s rich and things have always worked out for her, she doesn’t really very much consider the worst case scenario ever, she kind of assumes most people are good, most people are helpful. Although, by the end of season five she was not like that. Even in the first few episodes of season six she kind of seemed to have her head on her shoulders. But now she’s in this post-Dylan alcoholism or whatever.

Carly: Whatever. They didn’t really give us enough information about that, either.

Riese: Yeah, bring in Dylan.

Carly: I mean, really.

Riese: Bring in Dylan. Bring in Dylan, bring in Kelly, and most of all, bring in Mark and Gomey, who I think could be viable for this, because who blew up their spot? Jenny.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Just going to leave that there for whoever wants to investigate it.

Carly: Anyone had motive, it was Mark and Gomey.

Riese: It was. Mark lost all of his film contract with the Girls Gone Wild or whatever. Lesbians Gone Wild Incorporated, which is also the name of my company.

Riese: Okay, Helena I would give a five, actually, because I do feel like it was loyal to her character and that there was a moment of interesting emotional war play that felt relevant to anything. So I give it a five.

Carly: Okay. I can get onboard with that. I feel like it’s a four. I’m not feeling very generous today.

Riese: That’s fair.

Carly: Now we go in the Inspector Schecter series to Niki. I just love saying Inspector Schecter.

Riese: Schecter Seven.

Carly: I’m going to keep saying it. The Schecter Seven. Also this is not the Schecter Seven, as it was announced.

Riese: No. Also, where was Tasha’s interview? Because Tasha had some clips in the finale, but there was no Tasha interrogation tapes.

Carly: Yeah. Didn’t Kit have a clip in the finale?

Riese: Yeah, what happened to fucking Kit?

Carly: Also Kit was actually present for all of this. Niki just showed up in the bushes afterwards.

Riese: Right. They were probably just like, “Ooh, we’ve got a movie star here, let’s get her in.”

Carly: Yeah, of course.

Riese: She was the guest star of the Law and Order episode. She was like the Richard Dreyfus of this episode.

Carly: Yes, Niki is the Richard Dreyfus of this episode for sure.

Riese: Niki is the Cynthia Nixon of this episode.

Carly: Oh my God. So it starts with Niki asking:

Niki: Don’t I get to have a lawyer here?

Carly: She is the only person in any of these videos to do so. There was kind of like a thread of this in the finale, too, which is that they didn’t ask for a lawyer, they didn’t need a lawyer because they’re a close, tight-knit group that really looks out for each other.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: Is that code for something? Why does everyone keep saying this? I don’t understand.

Riese: They’re going to cover for each other even though the thing is no one really has to cover for anyone.

Carly: Because no one did anything.

Riese: The only person who was actually alone for any period of time was Shane. Everyone else was always with someone else.

Carly: That’s true. Shane was back at her house alone for periods of time.

Riese: And Shane would never kill anyone. Also, Jenny is definitely stronger than Shane.

Carly: Yes, like 1000%

Riese: Shane would have been like “uh.” And then Jenny would have been like “pow.”

Carly: And then Shane would have shattered into 1000 pieces on the deck.

Riese: Yeah, or would have been melting like the Wicked Witch.

Carly: Shane would have been like, “My bones!” And then she wouldn’t have any bones.

Riese: “My bones, my little lithe bones!”

Carly: Hollow bones.

Riese: “My hollow bones.”

Carly: Yeah. Lucy Lawless kind of implies to Niki, as an interrogation tactic—

Riese: Her only interrogation tactic.

Carly: Her only one, is flirtatiously suggesting that somebody might incriminate the person she’s talking to.

Riese: Right. So then we find out that Nikki is the one who stole the negatives. And then she put it in Jenny’s attic. Because if they found it, then they would blame Jenny and everyone would be mad at Jenny and she’d get back at Jenny for how Jenny treated her like she was just another showmance idiot.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: Even though she was actively pursuing Shane the whole time. But what this made me think of, this very brief little tape, was that the actual story of Lez Girls coming out, premiering and having the new ending and how that shook out for everybody involved in it would have been a really interesting season six.

Carly: Yeah. It really would have. If this really focused on what this film did to the group of friends, and did to everyone’s lives and the fact that the ending was changed. And even the stolen negatives is really stupid because the movie’s going to come out regardless. Because Niki doesn’t understand how editing works. But I also love that Niki was like:

Niki: I didn’t want anyone to see that movie because it was an embarrassment. And it was a terrible film.

Riese: Yeah, I did like that.

Carly: Honestly I get that, because it would be a terrible film.

Riese: I feel you. Right, and how would all of them deal with that? And again, it speaks to how much this season was short changed because they literally took one of their biggest stories and just buried it. It was in the attic instead of the basement, but I wish they’d done the basement, because that would have been more symbolically appropriate. But they just were like, “Oh, we don’t want to deal with this huge story, we’re just going to throw it in the attic.

Carly: Them even bringing up the stolen negatives in the previous season was so weird. Because why would they make such… Why would they have spent so much time on the stolen negative storyline if it was going to amount to literally nothing?

Riese: Because what it needed to amount to was Tina saying she was going to kill Jenny. That was the whole point of it.

Carly: Right.

Riese: Centering all of your plot around reasons why somebody might use the commonly used term of like, “I’m going to kill them,” that’s not a good idea.

Carly: No, I don’t recommend that. If there’s any aspiring or current television writers, or any writers, storytellers that might be listening to this, I would say don’t do that.

Riese: Honestly no matter what your job is.

Carly: Yeah. Also, why does Niki’s tape just abruptly end?

Riese: I guess she died.

Carly: Niki gets a 10.

Riese: Yeah, 10 out of 10 for Niki. She’s a great actress, that’s why they picked her to be in the film.

Carly: I gave her a 10 because she asked for a lawyer.

Riese: Yeah, and also because she acknowledged that the movie was bad.

Carly: Yes. Yes.

Riese: And how cute of her to steal the negatives as if that would make the movie stop in any other universe beside this one.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: Good job hiding those, Niki.

Carly: Yeah, good job putting them right by the attic stairs, attic ladder. Under one sheet.

Riese: Also when?

Carly: Yeah, when was she in the house by herself carrying around these heavy-ass… How did she get… How did she carry those heavy-ass reels up the attic stairs? She is tiny.

Riese: Maybe she had one of friends do it. She’s like, “Come here.” One of her party friends.

Carly: Because she did say she could get her friends to do anything for her.

Riese: Anything for her. Anything.

Carly: Including carrying negatives up a ladder.

Riese: Yeah. That’s when you know you have a real friend, because they carry something heavy for you into the attic.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: But then her friend was like, “Yeah, I hid them really good.”

Carly: And she was like, “Yeah, okay, I’ll take your word for it.” She should not have.

Riese: Poor Niki.

Carly: We move on to Max, which starts off with the discussion of our favorite, favorite episode, the lobster dinner.

Riese: Lobsters! Lobster dinner time, red lobster.

Carly: Oh my God. All right, I don’t know what that has to do with anything involving this crime.

Riese: They asked him what he ordered.

Max: Just some french fries and salad.

Carly: First of all, french fries and a salad is an excellent meal.

Riese: Yeah, that’s a dream meal.

Carly: Yeah. I mean, just french fries is actually my dream meal, but you know?

Riese: Yeah, yeah. Good to get your greens in though.

Carly: Yeah, I guess I could eat a vegetable. I mean, technically a french fry is a potato, which is a vegetable. I think we’ve covered enough about potatoes.

Riese: I mean, I do think that potatoes, at this point, are we still counting it as a vegetable or is it just a starch?

Carly: In my heart it’s going to be a vegetable, because I need to—

Riese: Yeah. Otherwise you don’t eat any vegetables.

Carly: Yes. That’s correct.

Riese: They’re talking about making corn not a vegetable anymore and I’m like, “What am I supposed to do here?”

Carly: How is popcorn not going to be my vegetable quota of the week?

Carly: So then Lucy Lawless says a thing that I was not thrilled with.

Riese: I didn’t care for it either. I know exactly what you’re going to say, and I also hated it.

Carly: Yeah, she says, “So you didn’t know when you started dating her,” her being Jenny, “that you wanted to change your identity.” Ooh, don’t love that phrasing.

Riese: Mm-mm (negative), I don’t love that at all. And I also don’t love that once again Max doesn’t correct because he’s gotten so used to being treated this way.

Carly: Exactly. This really felt like tapping into that idea that has been in film and television for so long, which is that trans people are deceptive. And that, I hate that. And again, I think I would like to plug the documentary Disclosure on Netflix if you want to understand a little bit more about why that trope is incredibly harmful, and yeah. When she said that to him, I was just like, “Ugh.”

Riese: Yeah. And also that being trans is an identity rather than…

Carly: Just who you are. And that she says that he wanted to change his identity. Everything about this is bad, I didn’t like this. And then he says that Jenny saw him for who he is, and helped him come to terms with it. Which… Did she?

Riese: I think she did. I think she did in the beginning. But then…

Carly: There were moments where she was very…

Riese: Supportive. But it wasn’t always clear if it was is she supportive or is she excited by this sort of—

Carly: Right. It’s like a fetishization.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. But ostensibly she was supportive. Then he says that Tom hated Jenny. And that Max doesn’t know if Tom would have left if not for Jenny. What?

Carly: Yeah, I’m like, wait. What?

Riese: The problem’s Max and Tom, I mean, yeah, Jenny was mean to Max. The problems that Tom and Max were having, which were pretty shallow — not shallow surface-level, but shallow in terms of it wasn’t written out — had nothing to do with Jenny.

Carly: Mm-mm (negative).

Riese: I don’t even remember Tom mentioning Jenny.

Carly: I don’t think Tom ever acknowledged Jenny.

Riese: Right. If my boyfriend, who was pregnant, was being mistreated by his friend and ex-girlfriend, my first thought would not be, “I think I’m going to leave him.”

Carly: “I’m going to change all of my phone numbers and get the fuck out of here.”

Riese: Yeah. “I don’t think I want to be around somebody who has such a mean friend. I’m out.”

Carly: “I’m going to just abandon him in the time when he really should not be abandoned.” I mean, you should never abandon anybody, but especially… This is not a good time for Max’s mental health.

Riese: Oh my God.

Carly: He at one point says:

Max: I don’t know anyone who could read anyone’s inner thoughts, desires, quite like Jenny.

Carly: And then the fucking dude cop is like, “So you were scared of her, why were you scared of her?” And he’s like, “I didn’t say that.” And I’m like, “Yeah, he didn’t say that.” That’s a figure of speech that people — oh my God. He talks about Jenny’s beautiful eyes, and that she had a power over him.

Riese: Right. And then there’s this weird thing where he… Because he’s like, “She’d look at you with those big blue eyes,” and then Xena’s like, “Oh, those pretty eyes.” And I’m like, “What’s happening?”

Carly: What do you know? She was dead when you met her, actually.

Riese: Yeah, she was dead. Her eyes were closed. Also, she had blue eyes? I don’t remember that.

Carly: I didn’t either.

Riese: Does she? I’m Googling it.

Carly: Okay, you Google it. In the meantime, I’m going to talk about where this goes next.

Riese: Brown.

Carly: They were brown. I thought they were.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Okay, well.

Riese: Although in pictures they do look blue. They do look blue, actually, even though the internet said brown. Yeah, they look blue.

Carly: Man, this is quite a conundrum.

Riese: They look gray, kind of.

Carly: Shark eyes.

Riese: Well, I guess we’ll never know. I think they’re blue actually.

Carly: Well, she’s dead so there’s no way of knowing.

Riese: Yeah. I think they’re blue. Gray, gray, gray.

Carly: Going with gray? Okay. So Max says:

Max: I don’t know if I should be telling you all of this stuff.

Carly: At which point I’m like, “What the fuck is he talking about?”

Riese: Yeah. Come on, spit it out.

Carly: Spit it out. And then he goes:

Max: Sorry for what I did.

Carly: And then if you, like me, are watching this, you’re probably wondering to yourself, what the fuck is he talking about? And then he says that he took Jenny’s toothbrush, scrubbed the bathroom floor with it, and presumably then gave it back to her to continue using to brush her teeth, because otherwise that’s not anything.

Riese: Because he was upset about Claude, cheated on him with that French girl. I mean, honestly I believe… Carmen would have been thrilled, because she was always like, “Max never cleans.” So that would have been good for that.

Carly: Oh my god, I know.

Riese: But also, is this supposed to be funny? Because it just made me feel like they think Max is 11.

Carly: Yeah, this just made me sad. I was just like, “I hate this.”

Riese: Yeah, that was my feeling, I was like, “Oh, I hate it.”

Carly: I also loved that they built it up, like everybody else is… Helena’s confessing to disbursement of stolen money, Shane’s admitting to arson. And Tina’s talking about really fucked up sexual assault, and then Max is like, “I scrubbed a bathroom floor with Jenny’s toothbrush.”

Riese: God. And obviously Jenny was fine, she didn’t get gingivitis or anything, that we’re aware of. Her teeth still looked great.

Carly: No, she lived through that, only to die in a pool

Riese: She lived through that. Exactly. That’s how it happens, you live through a major tragedy and then you accidentally maybe drown in a four-foot pool, in a kiddie pool.

Carly: I feel like the way they were like, “Come on, spit it out,” they were trying to say that if… “You had unfinished business, she didn’t die from the floor toothbrush, so that must be why you killed her.” Even though that makes zero sense.

Riese: Yeah, yeah. Surprisingly that makes zero sense because everything else makes so much sense. Also, wasn’t Jenny licking crème fraiche off the floor already? In that episode with Claude? I mean weren’t they? Come on.

Carly: There was a lot of questionable floor food hygiene going on in that moment. Yeah. This was very strange.

Riese: Yeah. What would you give that? I’d give it a zero. I’m just giving any Max writing a zero.

Carly: Max writing always gets a zero. They just really phoned it in, once again, for Max. Just — I’m embarrassed for anybody involved.

Carly: So Alice’s interview starts with the question, “When did you meet Miss Porter?” And this was the moment that I was like, “Is Bette under suspicion? Or was Bette murdered?” We’re totally talking a lot about Bette in all of these tapes.

Riese: Yeah, we are. Maybe they’re just like, “Well, since you’re here, let’s get the hot gos.”

Carly: Yeah, right?

Riese: And then Alice tells a story that doesn’t actually fit with what is established as canon for these characters.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Alice says that she, Bette, called her and wanted her to help her with her list for the gallery opening, because Alice knew everybody who was working at LA Magazine. And so Alice helped her with this list.

Carly: She invited musicians, fashion people, movers, shakers, people with money. You know, all the groups.

Riese: Yeah. And also everyone’s favorite group:

Alice: This lawyer that I had interviewed, who was involved in one of the Harry Potter lawsuits.

Carly: I was like, “Did I miss some sort of a moment in culture? There was some sort of Harry Potter lawsuit? What is this?”

Riese: Was it the Ministry of Magic versus Tina’s boyfriend?

Carly: You use your defense of the dark arts outside of the statute of limitations.

Riese: So the lawyer came and he brought Tina his… His girlfriend Tina. The thing is that this is how Tina and Bette met. They met at this gallery opening that Tina was at with her boyfriend.

Carly: Right.

Riese: At that point, Alice and Bette either were… I think they were dating, or they—

Carly: I think they were—

Riese: Or they had already dated… They were dating at that time.

Carly: Yeah, I think so. Because I think she broke up with Alice to date Tina, I believe.

Riese: Right. So this was definitely a relationship that lasted longer than her calling to get invites to the gallery opening, and then the gallery opening happening, because I think they were together for a few months at least. They went to the opera.

Carly: “How did you meet Miss Porter?” The answer is not, “She cold-called me to make a list of names.” What?

Riese: Right. And then, “The next time we saw each other was at the gallery opening,” where she met Tina.

Carly: Where she met the new love of her life. Where’s the part where she finger-banged Alice at the opera?

Riese: Yeah, where’s finger-banging at the opera? Come on, guys!

Carly: One of the greatest things that the show ever gave us.

Riese: And also, it would be bananas, especially for Alice, who loves to talk about her past relationships, and also she’s in an interrogation room, to not mention, “And then we dated.”

Carly: No, she left that part out.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Convenient, isn’t it? Then Lucy Lawless interrogates her about being the only bisexual in the group. She asks:

Lucy Lawless: Does that create problems for you?

Carly: Ugh. I don’t have time to deal with this.

Riese: Oh, she also says Tina says you’re the only bisexual. But isn’t Tina bisexual? Also, you know who else I think is bisexual is Max.

Carly: Max.

Riese: I think Max is bisexual. And honestly, you know who else is bisexual, I swear to God, it’s Kit Porter.

Carly: Kit Porter who was mysteriously absent from this series of interrogation tapes.

Riese: Interesting.

Carly: Interesting.

Riese: So anyway, Alice is already lying, either she’s lying or the writers decided to rewrite. And then we get the thing that was in the—

Carly: In the episode, the finale, about, “I’m more attracted to women, I fall in love with men, blah, blah, blah. Women are trouble, blah, blah, blah.” She does this whole bit about how she’s into hairless muscly men, and then the guy that’s the other cop or whatever, who’s kind of not that, gives her a dirty look. And she mentions it several times. I thought that was very odd and unnecessary.

Riese: Yeah, she was like, “I could have a fling with a non-sweaty man if I want to… Have a fling with a non-smelly man, a non-smelly man, I could.” So then she asks:

Alice: What does any of this have to do with who killed Jenny?

Riese: So you think someone killed Jenny? My God. My God.

Carly: And that was also in the episode, but that’s where Alice’s tape ends.

Riese: Also, why did they end it there? I also want to know the answer to that question. What does any of this have to do with who killed Jenny?

Carly: I also want to know who Alice thinks killed Jenny. I would love to hear who everyone… Okay, they’ve really missed an opportunity here, which is, I think I would like to call the RuPaul question. RuPaul, once the seasons of Drag Race get down to only a handful of the girls left, RuPaul always asks them, “Who do you think should go home?” Which forces them to turn on each other, and it’s really good TV. And I really think Lucy Lawless could have used the RuPaul interrogation tactic here, and asked all of them who they think did it. Because I would love to know what they are all thinking about that.

Riese: Right.

Carly: Do any of them think that she killed herself?

Riese: I have a guess, they all think that she killed herself.

Carly: Probably.

Riese: This is someone, who in fact, has tried to kill herself before.

Carly: Yes. It would make a lot of sense based on the character and what we know. But instead, we have this.

Carly: So we go to Bette’s tape, and it starts with Lucy Lawless asking Bette Porter, “Do you think you’re arrogant?” And Bette’s response is:

Bette: I think I’m lucky to be with someone who can tolerate a lot more than my mother did. Do you think I’m arrogant?

Carly: What?

Riese: What? What is what?

Carly: What is this?

Riese: What the arrogance?

Carly: Also, Bette is wearing a blazer and then suddenly not wearing the blazer anymore.

Riese: Good eye, Carly, I did not even notice that.

Carly: Thank you.

Riese: Oh, man, I just alarmed Carol.

Carly: Oh, Carol’s alarmed.

Carly: Anyway, where’s her blazer? I would like to launch a second investigation into where her blazer went.

Riese: Yeah, maybe it’s at the scene of the crime. Maybe Jenny used the blazer to hang herself in a true effort of lesbianism.

Carly: Yeah, yeah. If you’re going to kill yourself with an article of clothing, oh my God. Carol wants out. Carol’s like, “I cannot listen to another second of you talking about these people.”

Riese: Are you going under the couch or going under the table?

Carly: Is she going?

Riese: Where do you want to be, my little scaredy cat? She wants to be with me.

Carly: Does she want to sit on your lap? Oh! Hi Carol. Carol, we’re almost done, I promise you, you won’t have to hear about them anymore, except you will. But not right now. Hi Carol, Carol’s joining us.

Riese: Hi Carol.

Carly: To talk about Bette.

Riese: Who do you think killed Jenny? “I think it was a suicide.”

Carly: Wow, Carol, you’re so smart for a dog.

Riese: I think no one killed Jenny.

Carly: I think Jenny is at large some place with Helena’s money that she thought she donated, but didn’t.

Riese: I would have watched that film. Jenny At Large.

Carly: Jenny At Large. Oh my God. Bette says some more things about their relationship being imperfect.

Riese: I kind of liked what she said about relationships, like no relationship is perfect, you just find somebody who can tolerate you the most, and sees you more truly than anyone else. Which is supposed to be a lead-in to this ludicrous next—

Carly: Oh my God, oh my God.

Riese: … emotional what? What?!

Carly: What the actual fuck? Lucy Lawless is like, “How did she fail you, Bette?” And then Bette starts crying, and going into this monologue:

Bette: How could you not even ask me? How did it not even ever occur to you? To ask me if I might want to conceive and give birth to our second child? How could you have not asked me? She didn’t ask me.

Carly: What?

Riese: Why didn’t you tell her? You literally say what you want all the time.

Carly: Yeah, it’s never been hard for you to tell people how you’re feeling about something. You really don’t keep that shit to yourself, Bette.

Riese: That Bette has been sitting here this whole time harboring her resentment that Tina never asked her if she wanted to be pregnant with their second child?

Carly: There was zero evidence of Bette being resentful to Tina in the entirety of season six.

Riese: Right.

Carly: In fact, she was very happy with their relationship the whole season.

Riese: And was really happy about adopting.

Carly: Yeah. This made me feel so crazy. And then Lucy Lawless just gets up and leaves. Which was the correct response. She’s like, “We’re done here.” She doesn’t say that, but she implied it with her body language. “We are done here, Bette, this is bananas and we’re done.”

Riese: Yeah. Because really, they talked about, “Oh, we want to have a second child.” And then Tina was like, “Well, that means we’re adopting,” and Bette was like, “Oh, okay.” That’s what happened? That’s what happened?

Carly: Really? Really, Bette?

Riese: Really? I don’t buy it for one second. You were willing to put up Marci in your house. You wanted to adopt a baby.

Carly: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Riese: And also, why was she not the pregnant one in the beginning? I don’t remember, I guess…

Carly: I don’t know. They never showed us any discussion with those two characters about motherhood, about carrying a child, about what was important to either of them ever. Even though so much of the show revolved around getting pregnant, Angelica.

Riese: And even though Tina had this traumatic childhood, intensely traumatic childhood, nonstop badness involving Dottie sending her fucking dad home with poems from her beloveds.

Carly: “How could you not even ask me? If I wanted to read poems with you?

Riese: “How could you not ask me?” Tell her!

Carly: Oh my God, she can’t read your mind, Bette. Anyway.

Riese: When they talk about having a second child, anyone, anyone having a conversation about having a second child, a lesbian couple, would say, “Okay, these are our options, Tina gets pregnant, Bette gets pregnant, we get a surrogate, we adopt a baby, we adopt a foster child.” There would have been… Certainly Tina obviously said she didn’t want to be pregnant again, right? Because that would have been the first thing they talked about.

Carly: Of course.

Riese: And then they would have talked… Well, does Bette want to be pregnant?

Carly: That would have been the obvious next part of that conversation.

Riese: So this was fucking stupid.

Carly: This was so stupid.

Riese: Do they want us to think that Bette and Tina don’t know each other? Because that’s kind of what I walk away with.

Carly: That’s what they’ve basically put forward in these tapes, yeah. All I got out of this is Bette and Tina don’t know each other at all.

Riese: Right. And we never knew Tina.

Carly: And Max is still suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

Riese: Yeah, poor Max, my God.

Carly: Oh God, poor Max. Oh wait, rating, we have to rate Bette’s tape.

Riese: Zero.

Carly: Zero.

Riese: I was offended.

Carly: I was just shocked. I also got up and left at the end of it. Much like Duffy.

Riese: Duffy, the warrior princess.

Carly: Duffy, Xena. Duffy the warrior… Inspector Schecter and the Warrior Princess. New spinoff coming to you soon.

Riese: My first question would have been, “Why did you blow dry your hair?” They had wet hair before, and then they all changed and they came into the office with great hair. Mysterious, right?

Carly: Because it was the finale and they had to walk in slow-motion in the parking lot.

Riese: Oh yeah, I loved that part.

Carly: With the wind machine, the Beyonce tour wind machine.

Riese: singing L Word theme melody

Carly: Oh, it’s your favorite song.

Riese: Well, on a scale of one to an episode of Law and Order: SVU from 1997, I give this a—

Carly: A two.

Riese: A Law and Order: Trial By Jury.

Carly: Ooh. Yikes. Not a good mark. Not good marks at all. This was terrible. But we had to do it, we had to complete the full everything. We had to do it.

Riese: They had to go down to the station and we had to go down to the station with them.

Carly: We all had to go down to the station. Everyone had to go to the station. It seemed like Bette was maybe at a different station because her tape was for the LAPD and everyone else was with the Sheriff’s Department. But whatever. I guess there was a typo in the edit.

Riese: Yeah. Well…

Carly: Well that was fun.

Riese: I give it a zero.

Carly: I give it a zero.

Riese: I hated the interrogation tapes, and I think that everybody could have done a better job. And I think that it just adds to the pile of trash that is season six. But as usual, the worse something is, the funnier it is to discuss.

Carly: And this was a funny thing to watch and discuss.

Riese: Yeah. So the end of the interrogation tapes.

Carly: The end. And of the series.

Riese: And of the series. And we will expect your attendance tomorrow evening at our very special live episode surprise. A star-studded event. June first.

Carly: Star-studded. Spared no expense on this one.

Riese: Yeah. All-out glamor, glitz, vaccinated people, outfits.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Identities. Beloved poetries. All of it. It’s all coming to you from us.

Carly: It’s all going to be there. Live. And then it also will be an episode of this podcast.

Riese: Yeah, it will be.

Carly: So if you miss it live, it will be in this feed. It’s coming to you if it’s not already there.

Riese: Correct. So yeah, we’ll see you then.

Carly: Yeah, I would say also, never unsubscribe to this podcast.

Riese: Never unsubscribe.

Carly: You never know what we are going to be doing.

Riese: You never know. Yeah. You have no idea.

Carly: You can never unsubscribe to this because we could—

Riese: Never unsubscribe.

Carly: You have no idea what we’re doing. We have no idea what we’re doing.

Riese: We have no idea what we’re doing. There’s a possibility that there might be more. We don’t know yet.

Carly: We don’t know. But we don’t know that there won’t be more. But we don’t know that there will be. It’s the uncertainty that makes you stay subscribed.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Exactly. It’s that uncertainty that makes you stay subscribed and that’s all that we have to say about that.

Carly: Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back. You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter, we are @tolandback. You can also email us to [email protected]. And don’t forget, we have a hotline. You can give us a call, leave a message, it’s (971) 217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Carra Sykes, and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on social, I am @carlytron, Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle. And of course, autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: Autostraddle.com.

Carly: Alright. And finally, it’s time for our L words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually, these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay. Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three.

Carly: Lucy Lawless

Riese: Beloved with a silent B and E. I should have said limericks!

Carly: We’re not changing it. Everything that just happened is perfect.

Riese: Okay guys, bye!

Carly: Bye!

Riese: We love you!

Carly: Love you!

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder 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 Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, 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. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3159 articles for us.

7 Comments

  1. WRT Alice, Bette, Tina and that gallery opening pretty much going against canon, there was also that bit in Season 1 when they’re at Dina Shore and Alice talks about the gallery opening and being in that lets be friend space after having broken up with Bette (which is then rewritten the next two times its mentioned, and rewritten differently both times!).

    WAT? How can the writers know about this gallery opening enough to use it in storylines but never keep hold of the basic facts once!?

    • right! a lot of shows mess stuff up like that, but i think this show tried to keep its backstory narratives consistent (and generally non-existent) and that really stood out as like, what

  2. Ack! THANK YOU so much for interrogating the interrogation. These tapes have freaked me out and bothered me ever since I saw them, especially Tina’s, wtf?? really appreciate your considered take on it, I needed this! Love your work, your podcasts have helped me feel less alone during the pandemic, for real though.

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