Boobs on Your Tube: Abby McEnany and Robin Weigert Are a Lesbian Couple on Network TV???

Hey, it’s another week of tv and movies on your screen! Let’s see what happened! Morphine is the runaway star of Rupaul’s Drag Race. Charlie and Vaggie’s relationship is at the heart of Hazbin Hotel’s first season finale. Peacock’s new polyamorous reality show Couple to Throuple forgets that thirds are people, too (and Gabe Dunn is here to tell you all about it!). Parvati Shallow’s predatory headband stole the show on the latest The Traitors.

Wynonna Earp is coming back for a 90-minute scripted special! A new Love Lies Bleeding trailer dropped and the horny lesbian atmosphere is electric! This week’s episode of Good Trouble was the queerest of the season! This week’s edition of “Anatomy of a Sex Scene” is looking at the disruptive power of queer sex in Dogtooth. Director and screenwriter Molly McGlynn talked with Autostraddle about her new semi-autobiographical film Fitting In, casting Maddie Ziegler, and feeling between identity boxes. Drew opened up the archives and saw 1950’s Caged and had an amazing time.

We had a very special essay from writer Gabrielle Korn that reconsiders Jodie Foster’s work in Contact. Open that tab! It should be your must read of the week. And by any chance do you love porn and the movie Toy Story? Well our friends, does Drew have a surprise for you!!

And here’s what else:

Notes from the TV Team: 

+ The Raising Kanan Season Three finale is airing today, and there’s no easy way to talk about last week’s episode without also accounting for what’s airing tonight. So instead I’m going to wait and write us a little summary in the next edition of Boobs on Your Tube for both episodes! Get Ready!  — Carmen

+ Chyler Leigh’s Hallmark Show The Way Home introduced a non-binary teen character named Casey this season. Last season they had a character with two moms but it seems like Casey is going to be a bigger part of this season’s story; I’m personally shipping them with their fellow teen Alice, but we’ll see! — Valerie Anne


Tracker (A Preview!! It Airs on Sunday After the Super Bowl)

Written by Natalie

Velma (Abby McEnany) clutches a kitten while examining information on her laptop, while her wife, Teddi (Robin Weigert), cuts vegetables nearby in the kitchen.

There is no more coveted spot in all of primetime television than the hour after the Superbowl. Somehow, even after consuming over four hours of football and commercials, a sizeable portion of the audience sticks around for whatever follows — known as the “lead-out” program — and there’s a huge ratings spike. For example, after last year’s game, an audience of 15.66 million viewers tuned in for the season premiere of Next Level Chef on FOX, more than 8 times the audience for subsequent episodes. For the network, the hope is that maybe some of those viewers will get hooked on a show and become part of the regular viewing audience.

This year, that coveted hour following Superbowl LVIII goes to Tracker, the new Justin Hartley led series on CBS. Based on The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver, the show centers on Colter Shaw, a trained survivalist who travels the country and makes his living as a “rewardist,” someone who tracks down missing people or things and accepts the reward as payment. Tracker is a case of the week procedural but Colter’s backstory — particularly how he obtained his unique skillset — gets unearthed as the season progresses.

In the field, Shaw mostly works alone but he has an engaging team behind him. Bobby (Eric Graise) serves as Colter’s tech support and Reenie (Fiona Rene) bails Colter out when he needs legal help.

But it’s Velma and her wife, Teddi, played endearingly by Abby McEnany and Robin Weigert, respectively, who you’ll fall in love with right away. The wives serve as Colter’s handlers: selecting which rewards he’ll pursue, helping him with his investigations when needed, and providing the emotional support that Colter accepts begrudgingly. McEnany and Weigert are charming together and add an layer of effervescence to what could be a taxing watch… though, admittedly, the proliferation of fluffy, cute animals around them in the first episode helps.

Through the first three episodes made available to critics, I found myself liking Colter Shaw well enough — he’s very brooding — but I’m eager to learn about his back-up team and their relationships to Colter. I longed for more screentime for Velma and Teddi and found myself hoping that one day we might see them helming a comedic spin-off. CBS has a track record of creating shows with an affable “everyman” and their enduring wife, from The Honeymooners to The Neighborhood… so why couldn’t McEnany and Weigert step into those roles? Maybe if Tracker does well. Given that the last Justin Hartley lead-out became one of the most watched shows in recent history, I’ve got high hopes.

Tracker debuts Sunday night after the Superbowl (you can see the trailer here).


Death and Other Details Episode 105: “Exquisite”

Written by Valerie Anne

death and other details: anna sheepishly leaves a naked eleanor's room

“Paint me like one of your French girls.”

We open on a flashback: The night of the murder, Leila sneaks out of her suite to meet up with Danny. He says he knows she was doing non-clickbait investigative journalism when she met her wife and that the Colliers ran her off the road, but Leila corrects him there; it’s true she was investigating a story, but the Colliers were victims. When Danny asks who was responsible, she says Viktor Sams. She tries to warn him, but he keeps digging, and that’s what got him killed.

Back in present time, Leila recounts all this to Rufus and is surprised when he believes her, after so long of being written off as having bonked her head too hard.

Meanwhile, Anna is slipping out of bed with Eleanor, rightfully sheepish. She tells Eleanor that this was fun but…and Eleanor gets it. “This never happened.” When Leila gets back to the suite, she begs Anna to leave the ship with her, saying that they’re still in danger, but Anna brushes her off.

Another flashback: Six months ago, Leila meets a man in a parking lot who is too afraid to talk about Viktor Sams around any technology. When he worked at the NSA, he flagged suspicious activity leading back to Viktor Sams and next thing he knew his work computer was flooded with porn and he was fired. Leila listens to his story, but as soon as she gets in the car, she makes a voice note about it on her phone. Moments later, her GPS goes haywire and her car steers itself clear off the road.

So we know what I’ve long suspected: Leila isn’t paranoid, she’s right. But Anna doesn’t know this, so she smiles sadly and tells Anna they should call their therapist. The session doesn’t go well and Leila says Anna was the first person who truly saw her, but that’s gone now. And she wants a divorce. The words seem to surprise Leila as they come out of her own mouth but then she realizes it’s true so she says it again resolutely.

She tells Anna to go to her board meeting so she doesn’t “lose the deal, too.” Ouch.

Alas, the board meeting also doesn’t go well; the Chuns walk away with 51% of Collier Mills because Anna’s father didn’t respect her authority.

Back in the suite, Leila does another sweep for bugs and finds a hidden camera. VERY hidden. Built-into-the-boat hidden. She gives it to Rufus who says someone who knew how this boat works must have installed it.

Then it cuts to Sunil, on a date with Imogen after they got the refugees to safety, and it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that the street performer is singing Psycho Killer.

Back on the boat, Rufus and Leila investigate suspicious floor plans, take an axe to a wall and find what they believe to be the base of Viktor Sam’s operations.


La Brea Episode 305: “The Road Home (Part 1)”

Written by Valerie Anne

La Brea: Izzy smirks at Layla in the woods

:Adele wail: We could have had it aaaaall

I’m here today to tell you I was wrong. Or rather, I was misled. I was so sure they were setting up a sweeping romance between Izzy and Layla to end the final season with. When Layla wasn’t in the next episode after their moment by the campfire, I wasn’t too worried; it was only episode 4, surely there was time. WRONG. What I hadn’t realized was that this season is only 6 episodes long, which makes this the penultimate episode…which is concerning for reasons that will soon become clear. But first, here’s what Izzy and Layla were up to this week.

Izzy goes to Vanessa to tell her that Layla invited her for an overnight stargazing trip (gay) and Vanessa can tell Izzy likes her so doesn’t understand why she said no. (*I* don’t understand why we didn’t get to see THAT scene.) Izzy feels guilty having a romantic evening when there’s so much happening between her mom being kidnapped etc, but she also hopes she didn’t ruin things with Layla. Vanessa assures her that the right moment will show itself. I, however, am less convinced.

Later, Layla takes Izzy on a walk and says she wants to show Izzy something she thinks will help them live a better life. But on their way to this surprise, they find dead soldiers around where Izzy knows her dad was heading, so Layla says she’ll track him. But instead she takes Izzy to an aurora that would take them back to the future. But the aurora isn’t there. Izzy tells Layla that running isn’t the answer and wants to know how she even knew where an aurora was supposed to be, and Vanessa and Layla’s mom show up with a radio they found, and Layla confesses she’s been a double agent for Maya. She swears no one was supposed to get hurt, but Maya lied, because a few minutes later, Levi dies.

At the end of the episode, Izzy and her dad (and some other folks) find another aurora and since all signs point to her mom being in 1965, they stroll right through that aurora. Izzy doesn’t hesitate or look back or tell anyone to say goodbye to Layla for her. That’s just it! It seems unlikely they’ll have time to wrap up that storyline with all the other loose ends they still have to tie, but before I go on a rant about them having teased us for no reason, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait until next week’s finale to see if we do get a gay happily ever after…but I’m not going to hold my breath.


Hightown 303: “Fall Brook”

Written by Natalie

Jackie stands in a motel parking lot, in front of the dumpster she just crawled out of, watching Emma walk away. She's wearing an orange sleeveless top with South Jr. Ram on it.

Jackie wakes up, next to Emma, with a start. In her dreams, she imagined her time with Veronica: getting intimate on a poolside lounger, seductively sipping beer while Veronica undresses to take a dip in the pool and then Veronica falling face first into a pool stained by her blood. Emma wakes up too and Jackie immediately questioned her about mumbling “poor Veronica” as she went to sleep. Emma insists she didn’t say that and refuses to give Veronica’s information to a stranger. Jackie explains that she’s not a stranger — she and Veronica hooked up and then Veronica took her car — and Emma’s like, “yeah, that tracks.”

(Can I just pause and say that I’m really going to miss seeing Monica Raymund playing queer on my screen? The swagger she brings to Jackie is…well, let’s just say Jackie Quiñones would be a mistake I’d gladly make.)

Jackie assures Emma that she doesn’t care about the stolen car, she only wants to make sure Veronica’s okay after finding the bloody shirt in the trunk. If Veronica’s not okay, Jackie swears, she wants to help her. Emma calls Veronica but it goes unanswered. Jackie insists that Emma take her to where Veronica lives and Emma agrees, if Jackie pays her for her time. Jackie agrees and they head to the rundown motel that Veronica calls home.

Unfortunately, Veronica’s not there either. A maid’s cleaning her room and admits to tossing all of Veronica’s things into the dumpster, at the owner’s instruction. Jackie climbs into the dumpster and digs through the trash for Veronica’s things. Emma recognizes some of them, including a prized stuffed animal, and her concern over Veronica’s whereabouts grow. Emma admits that Veronica lifted something from a client last week and that was the last time that she saw her. But just as Emma’s starting to trust Jackie, two asshole cops roll up and threaten to arrest them both. Jackie lies and says she’s State Police working undercover and drops Ray’s name. One of the cops recognizes Ray’s name and, immediately, the tenor of the interaction changes. The cops leave without incident but the damage has been done: Emma no longer trusts Jackie and refuses to help her.

“Look at you, you think you can save the fuckin’ world. Is that what it is? Well, you’re fuckin’ wrong and you’re wasting your goddamn time,” Emma spits, grabbing Veronica’s stuffed animal and leaving. It’s a pretty good diagnosis of Jackie’s problem, TBH.

Jackie reaches out to Ray to try and get information about Veronica’s pimp, Swazey, but he refuses. Left to her own devices, Jackie visits the streets of Fall Brook and pays a sex worker named Baby for information. Baby’s stingy with information so Jackie confesses what she’s after, she just wants to find Veronica and make sure she’s okay. But Baby gets one look at Veronica’s photo and she realizes what this is: just someone else trying to save another white girl.

“Are you looking for who killed Maxine McClean or any of the other girls that’s been good and gone?” Baby asks. “White girl miss one appointment and you call out the dogs, huh?”

Realizing that this might go deeper than even she thought, Jackie tries to reach out to Emma again. When her call goes unanswered, she heads back to Emma’s apartment only to find Swazey there. He insists that he doesn’t know Veronica but threatens Jackie if she continues to poke around for information. Undeterred, Jackie heads back to Provincetown to solicit more information about Swazey from Petey. But instead of being greeted by one of Petey’s pervy comments, Jackie finds her dealer dead from a gunshot to the head.

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Valerie Anne

Just a TV-loving, Twitter-addicted nerd who loves reading, watching, and writing about stories. One part Kara Danvers, two parts Waverly Earp, a dash of Cosima and an extra helping of my own brand of weirdo.

Valerie has written 608 articles for us.

Natalie

A black biracial, bisexual girl raised in the South, working hard to restore North Carolina's good name. Lover of sports, politics, good TV and Sonia Sotomayor. You can follow her latest rants on Twitter.

Natalie has written 418 articles for us.

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