The L Word: Season 6, Epi.7 – Last Couple Standing

The L Word: Last Dance

Jamie’s all night dance-a-thon fundraiser at Hit had a decades theme: 70s, 80s, and 90s. There were three contests: Best Dance, Most Money Raised, and Last Couple Standing, all of which Alice was determined to win. Some of the music really took me back, especially Back to Life by Soul II Soul. A few friends and I butchered that song, a capella, in our 10^th grade talent show, before breaking out in a crazy Kid N’ Play style dance. Yikes!  When Alice, Tasha, and Jamie donned asymmetrical wigs and kicked it to Salt N’ Pepa’s Push It, I cringed, but only because their performance was WAY better than ours.

Best Dance: I was pleasantly surprised to see that almost everyone in the cast had dance skills. Bette and Tina weren’t bad, even Jenny and Shane were okay. Marlee Matlin’s character, Jodi, totally rocked it, winning Best Dance.  What I think will be her final appearance on the show gave her Dancing With The Stars fans a treat and her relationship with Bette some well needed closure.

Most Money Raised: Tina gets a job offer in New York and she and Bette are both ready for a brand new start. Bette really wants to get away from Jenny, who is threatening to tell Tina that Bette hooked up with Kelly while she was out of town. Bette keeps trying to tell Tina about the misunderstanding before Jenny does, but can’t find the right time. In an effort to get away from Jenny, Bette runs up on stage and pledges $1500 to the cause. Alice is down, but not out. She may still be able to win this contest.

Jenny talks Niki into placing herself up for auction to raise money. Niki does it, only to have Jenny bid $25,000 for her. Jenny takes the microphone and explains to Shane and the rest of the club that she doesn’t have to sneak around the have sex with Niki. She can have her whenever she wants because she bought Niki for her. Everyone is shocked, no one more than Alice, who realizes that she can SO not beat Jenny’s pledge.

 

 

Last Couple Standing: Tina and Bette get stood up by the birth mother, who was supposed to  move in with them before the adoption, which leads me to believe that they will be adopting Max’s child. Let’s hear it for the boy! Max’s child will get a loving home and maybe Max will finally get his surgery!

Helena and Dylan are back together and pretty boring.

Kit finally learns the truth about Sunset, whose real name is Sonny. He is a “straight man who loves his gay and lesbian family,” but to Kit, he is just another man who betrayed her trust. She thinks he lied to her about who he was and she is confused, angry, and especially embarrassed because she told him things she would have never told a man. He wants to take her out to dinner, get to know her better, and share more of himself.  Visibly shaken, she says she has to think about it.   Come on, Kit!

Throughout the course of the night, Alice begins to get a weird vibe from Jamie. She asks her friends if they see it too and the only one who tells her she should be worried is Helena. Alice decides to confront Jamie, who admits to having feelings for Tasha but promises that she would never act on them. During the last dance of the night, Alice tells Tasha that she has never loved her more and that she just wants her to be happy. Then she asks her if she has feelings for Jamie. All Tasha can say is “I’m not ready to let you go.” They hold each other tightly, as they share what is probably their last dance. They are the last ones on the dance floor.  Alice finally won a contest.

Looks like all hell will break loose next week in the finale. Shane learns about the letter Molly gave Jenny (the one she hid in the attic), Tina may find out about Bette’s misunderstanding, Helena and Dylan finally get some action, and of course, Jenny dies.

The L Word airs Sunday at 9pm on Showtime, but tune in an hour earlier for a series finale special with an overview of the series, highlights, and never before scenes.

 

The L Word: Season 6, Epi.6 – Lactose Intolerant

The L Word: Lively

Apparently theme parties are all the rage and that is why Jenny throws Max a Willa Wonka baby shower. More disturbing than seeing a little girl turn into a blueberry is Jenny’s monstrous behavior towards Max, Helena, and  Jamie.  It’s bad enough that Tom left Max high and dry, and pregnant , but he has got to deal with all the ladies saying what an asshole Tom is. Max doesn’t agree and excuses Tom by saying that he was just scared. It’s not everyday that a gay man impregnates his pre-op trans boyfriend. It’s either flight or fight and Tom decided to fly and change both his numbers.  Maybe the ladies are right.

If that’s not bad enough, Jenny keeps referring to Max as a woman the whole time and Tina is a little annoying with questions about birth plans and the benefits of breastfeeding. If he could, Max would probably lop off his breasts with a Wonka bar.

Instead, he gets on his knees and begs Bette and Tina to adopt his child. They are honored, but dismissive because they think Max is just panicking. Besides they have plans to adopt a different child.

Was Jamie trying to get Shane to be there for Alice because once she steals Tasha, Alice will definitely need a shoulder to cry on? We never really got to the end of that conversation because Jenny totally cockblocked.  How malicious was Jenny when it came to telling Dylan about last week’s test at Hit?  When Dylan finds out, she leaves Helena who spends the rest of the episode drunk as a skunk.  We have another threat against Jenny’s life when Helena says to Shane, “I’m gonna fucking  kill your girlfriend!” It carries a little bit of weight, especially since Helena is an ex-con.

Bette and Tina encounter a complication with their pending adoption. The potential birth mother is from Nevada, which is one of the few states that does not allow gay couples to adopt. Joyce found a loophole, two actually. The first Bette was totally against: Adopting the child as a single parent and have the second parent adopt once they are back in California. The second was to have Marci, the birth mother, move to California, have her baby while living with Bette and Tina and then they would both be able to adopt him.  They decide to go with the latter since it doesn’t involve starting their baby’s life off with a lie. Meanwhile Bette and Kelly have their gallery opening as Wentworth Porter makes its debut. Unfortunately Tina can’t make it because she is in New York on business.

After the love triangle goes out for a run, Tasha catches a glimpse of a naked Jamie and immediately jumps Alice’s sweaty bones. In the time it takes Jamie to take a shower, Alice and Tasha do it on the couch. They are not as  quick or as quiet as they think and Jamie stands in the hallway listening. There is a look on her face that seems like she’s amused, confused, intrigued, and a even a little interested, but at the time, I still don’t know which girl she’s interested in. That all changes later at Jamie’s house when she makes a point to ask Tasha what she thinks of her dress and much later when she and Tasha bond when talking about their very similar childhoods.  Looks like Jamie might be helping Tasha with more than just her endurance test for the police academy.

Jenny buys Shane a photography studio. While giving Shane the tour, one thing that stood out to me is that Jenny  said, “… so you don’t have to ask anyone for a favor ever again.”  I get the feeling that she is setting Shane up and making sure she’s taken care of for the future. Is her suicide premeditated? And why not buy Shane a hair salon instead? That’s what she’s really good at, but I guess that would involve Shane doing women’s hair and we know what Shane would really be doing.

Sunset finds out that Kit and Helena are just business partners and not partner partners. “My body doesn’t respond to its own kind,” Kit tells him as she rubs his biceps. Sure he was clad in Madonna’s Like a Virgin wedding dress at the time, but it was most action Kit’s gotten in a long time. Later, Sunset, out of drag and unrecognizable to Kit,  told her that she was “one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen and I would love nothing more than to take her home with me tonight and wake up in the morning with her arms and legs wrapped around me.” As soon as he got the monologue out, from the fantasy Kit shared with him as Sunset, he got a face full of wine.

Kelly “Sabotage” Wentworth cries wolf about an oyster crisis at work to get Bette off the phone with Tina. She claims to be worried that there won’t be enough oysters for all the guests. Luckily, Bette sees through her transparent scheme. Kelly tells Bette that Tina should be more supportive and not off in New York on business. Then she pretty much calls Tina Bette’s wife and Bette scoffs at the idea and schools Kelly on the kind of relationship she and Tina really have.

As Shane sucks down one of the aforementioned oysters at Bette’s opening, Jenny tells her why she doesn’t eat oysters. “It reminds me of a guy coming in my mouth.” Nice.

Shane almost loses it (and by it, I mean the oyster), but doesn’t and it turns out to be a sweet, funny moment between the two of them. The oysters rear their ugly heads again after Shane sneaks out with Nikki, starts to make out with her, only to stop short for what I thought was a moment of clarity, but turns out to be food poisoning. Nikki bolts once the going gets tough, leaving Shane high and dry, and puking, with no one else to call but a frantic Jenny. Jenny takes care of Shane and promises to “always be there for her,” before she spies on Bette and Kelly through the window.

Of course,  Jenny misses when a very inebriated Kelly shows up at Bette’s door, drunkenly hits on her, gets rebuffed, and accidently breaks a glass. But catches them just in time to see Bette bend down to clean up the glass. Unfortunately (for Bette) from Jenny’s point of view, it looks like Bette and Kelly are sharing an intimate moment. Then Jenny does what any true friend would do, she takes a picture, you know, for proof.

Do you think that Jenny is planning a future for Shane? Do you think Tasha is going to leave Alice for Jamie? Will Kit get with Sunset? Will Bette and Tina end up adopting Max’s child? Did Jenny Schecter kill Jenny Schecter?

The L Word airs Sunday nights on Showtime at 9pm. (Only two episodes left in the final season – eeeeek!)

The L Word: Season 6, Epi. 5 – Litmus Test

The L Word: Liar

Alice. Went. Off! After reluctantly asking Jenny to give her notes on a movie treatment, Alice learns that Jenny steals  her idea and sells it for $500,000! Alice confronts Jenny about stealing her movie idea and Jenny says that any similarities are just coincidences. She pretty much lies through her teeth. Alice threatens to kill her TWICE and finally, it’s a threat I can believe. 

 

 

 

 

 

Bette definitely needs to go back to work… in an office. Did anyone notice how many times she opened and closed and opened and closed her laptop because she was so busy yapping ? It was refreshing to see a light, fun side of her and she was actually funny.

She was  full of jokes, advice, ideas, theories - like the Third Wheel Crush. Bette and Tina think that Alice and Tasha both have a crush on Jamie, which is fine because she rejuvenates their troubled relationship. The problem occurs when the friendship tips and one of them begins to have feelings for Jamie, which becomes quite obvious in the dancing scene at Hit later in the show. By the way, I love how both of Alice’s girlfriends, Tasha and Jamie, stuck up for her. 

Trapping Dylan  by using Niki as bait was pretty juvenile. Dylan, thankfully, didn’t fall for it,  but instead remained true to the possibility of a future with the love of her life, Helena. It pretty much panned out for her too! They are back together!

Yikes! Jealous much? What’s with Jenny forbidding Shane to talk to Niki and checking her text messages? Shane can’t even get five minutes to smoke some contraband and talk to… Niki.  After threatening Jenny by telling her that she makes her want to “act out,” Shane  passive aggressively tries to get out of the relationship by saying, “If I had to choose today between this relationship and our friendship, I’d have to choose the friendship.” Jenny wasn’t having it.  

Shane looks beat down, run down, and totally fed up with Jenny’s antics. It was one thing when Jenny was her crazy friend, but quite another as her crazy girlfriend. It really doesn’t help that Niki has the major hots for Shane. From next week’s scenes, it is ON!  Boy, is Shane gonna be “acting out!”  Um, did I really just say “major hots?”

Who will tip the scale, Alice or Tasha? Will Shane act out with Niki ? Where is Max?

 The L Word airs at 9pm Sunday on Showtime.

The L Word: Season 6, Epi. 3 – LMFAO

The L Word: Laughter Is The Best Medicine

Alice’s initial reaction to Shane and Jenny’s hook up was priceless. As the smoke cleared, you could see the state of her mind right on her face: confusion, shock, more confusion, disbelief, and finally, disgust. How could Jenny even ask Alice to keep what she saw under wraps when Alice’s business was telling people’s business with The Chart? By the way, The Chart totally needs to be updated.

 

The L Word: Season 6, Epi. 2 – Least Likely

The L Word: Labor of Love

We’ve got our first official threat against Jenny’s life. Niki goes off on a rampage after being used and dumped by Jenny. “Jenny Schecter is a liar and a user. Trust me, you are not going to get away with this. You are dead meat, Schecter. Dead.”

Unfortunately this threat only made me discount Niki as a real suspect. Dead meat probably means that Jenny is SO not one of her myspace friends anymore and at worst, Niki will probably write some shit about her in a random bathroom stall. Next!

Alice and Tasha:

The odds are stacked against me, I mean them. As much as I am rooting for them, I have to face facts, it ain’t meant to be. If their pros vs. cons list wasn’t proof enough, Alice’s overbearing Chatty Cathy monologue during therapy was. That said, as they both have acknowledged, they do have great chemistry, but is that enough to make a relationship work?

Bette and Tina:

There is no way I would have waited in the wings to be introduced if I were Tina, especially with Bette swooning over her old “friend,” Juicy Wentworth (Elizabeth Berkley). I would have been like, “Hi, I’m Tina, Bette’s partner and baby’s momma. Yes, we are expanding our family AND our house,” but not in a bitchy, jealous, overprotective way, of course.

Helena and Dylan:

I think Alice did a great job of breaking down the history between Helena and Dylan for Tasha and for viewers who may not have seen what went down between them in Season 3. (Dylan pretended to be gay and hooked up with Helena. She and her boyfriend then sued Helena for sexual harassment. Turns out Helena turned her out and now Dylan is gay and back in town.) I really was expecting Helena to use some of her prison moves on Dylan when she walked up on her in the club. No, not those prison moves, some beat down moves. Disappointingly enough, it was only a rough shove, but the exchange between them in the parking lot totally planted the seed for those other prison moves. You know they’re coming.

Max and Tom:

Can a brother get a break? Damn! Max was SO close to getting his reassignment surgery, only to be told that he’s pregnant by his homosexual male lover, Tom. Did the doctor really have to call him out and break it down by calling it “vaginal sex?” Poor Max. For those of you who may not know Max’s history, Max used to be Moira. Since he is pregnant, obviously he still has Moira’s “girl parts.”

(At least now we know why the police officer referred to Max as a woman in the scene three months from now,  he’ll be 7 months pregnant!)

Phyllis and Joyce: Older lesbian love is cute.

Jenny and Shane:

First off, I love how Shane gives it a week. A week of apologizing, car-washing, waffle-making and she is done. Second, we SO called it, people! We knew Jenny was talking to Shane about breaking her heart and we knew she was in love with her.

Now I don’t think Shane is in love with Jenny, but I do think that Shane passing up a girl, any girl, is like the big bad wolf passing on a pig. Not gonna happen.

The two of them hooking up? I have to say that my heart’s not in it. I’m not feeling it. It seems forced and like a last minute, last season, last ditch effort to me.

So what do you think about Shane and Jenny getting together?

The L Word airs at 9 pm Sunday nights on Showtime.

The L Word: Season 6, Epi.1 – Long Night’s Journey Into Day

The L Word: Loyalty

Creepy, dark, eerie, and did I mention creepy? That’s what the opening scene of the Season 6 premiere was. The mist on the police cruisers, the lights, the sirens – it was all too much for me. It reminded me of the kind of thriller movie I try my best to avoid. Then I remembered that death isn’t pretty, as the paramedics rolled Jenny’s body through Bette’s living room. They found her body in the pool. *shudder*

Although the movie-like intro had me expecting Morgan Freeman to step on the scene, the detective on the case was Lucy Lawless, (that’s right, Xena and for you BSG fans, D’Anna aka Number 3). As Sergeant Mary Beth Duffy, she had some questions for the seven women in the room: Bette, Tina, Shane, Kit, Helena, Alice, and Max. Did anyone else find it strange that the officer who debriefed the sergeant referred to Max as a woman?

They flashback to the Lez Girls wrap party, three months earlier, where all is calm and thankfully bright. Now here’s the show I know and love! We pick up where we left off with Jenny telling either Shane or Niki that she has broken her heart. We are also reminded that the movie executives want to change the movie and give it the old Hollywood Hetero ending it “deserves.” Emotions are running high; Tina is upset over the turn of events in the movie, Bette is defending Shane and her betrayal of Jenny, and Alice and Tasha are on the verge of breaking up.

Jenny is rightfully pissed off at Shane and Niki and raking them over the coals. And Shane is begging for forgiveness and getting nowhere. After Jenny kicks her and her “skanky” clothes out of the house, Shane tries to crash with Bette and Tina who have a feverish Angelica on their hands. Because they were too busy and too judgy (Tina) to deal with her, Shane goes to Alice’s. Bad timing; she and Tasha are in the middle of a huge fight. Alice comes clean about her friendship with the fashion designer she met last season. She explains to Tasha that Clea Mason (Melanie Lynskey) was easy to talk to, that they had a lot in common, BUT she didn’t cheat. To Tasha, things are black and white, thinking is cheating, and she is out! Alice’s best line, “I mean, I didn’t even really kiss her, at all.” What? That’s like being a little pregnant. Either ya kissed, or ya didn’t!

Poor Shane was all alone with nowhere to go. Took me back to Season 1 when she was staying out all night, hooking up with random girls, being a dick, but at least there was remorse this time. Shane finally goes to The Hit Club (Helena and Kit‘s new club), gets loaded and then proceeds to get really great advice from Kit. Don’t let Jenny go without a fight. Fight to the death for your friendship.

We also learn that Shane is in love with Molly and the hurt over their breakup and the fact that Jenny and Niki were on a break is what led her to hook up. Shane was promising all kinds of stuff in return for Jenny’s forgiveness. “I’ll be your slave, your assistant.” What she should have offered was free hair services for life! Jenny wasn’t buying it, and later told Molly that Shane and Niki were together and had been for months. Does she really believe that or was that her way of making things worse for Shane and Molly? Why hide the jacket and Molly’s letter to Shane in the attic — why not burn the letter and throw jacket out on lawn with the rest of Shane’s stuff? It’ll be interesting to see if Jenny forgave Shane before she died. Jenny tricks Niki into one last romp, then curses and kicks her out. We learn then that it was in fact Shane who had broken her heart. Awwwh…

The next day at The Planet, were battle lines drawn or what? The division of the friends was very telling. Shane, Alice, and Bette – the cheaters. Jenny, Tasha, and Tina – the cheatees. So are you Team Shane or Team Jenny?

Also, wasn’t it great to see Papi again?

The L Word airs at 9p.m. Sunday nights on Showtime.

The L Word: Season 6 Teaser

Starting next week, along with the Mommy Monday blog, Sophie (my best friend and co-conspirator) will be posting a review of Showtime’s The L Word. Please stop by every Monday and show her some love, and by love I mean leave comments and engage in conversation about the hit drama entering its final season.

- Nina

The L Word: Left Field

When I heard there was a murder on the final season of The L Word, I have to admit I thought it was a stretch. I thought they were closing the show on a jumped shark. But then I watched the 10 minute teaser, Who Killed Jenny Schecter?, and realized that I could buy it. Killing the character who brought us into this world of femme fatales, transsexual friends, dueling club owners, and provided an intimate look into the lives of lesbians could work.

When Jenny (Mia Kirshner) stepped on the scene, all doe-eyed and innocent, she knew nothing of this world and neither did most of the viewers. The extent of my experience with lesbians was 1) my best friend thinking I was one because I kept my (hetero)sexual encounters close to the vest and 2) the aforementioned best friend’s brief but stalkerish friendship with a lesbian porn star.

Over the next five seasons, I watched Jenny learn the ropes, deal with her troubled past, write a novel, direct a movie, betray friends, fall in love, and piss off quite a few people along the way. Jenny’s is a cautionary tale; don’t move cross country to be with your corn-fed boyfriend, cheat on him with one of his lesbian acquaintances, and let him walk in on you two legs akimbo. And maybe it’s not such a good idea to let your ego blow up to the size of a West Hollywood coffee shop and alienate your friends.

Who Killed Jenny Schecter? included scenes from the upcoming season, as well as interviews from the producer/writer and actors and their take on Jenny’s death. Katherine Moening, who plays Shane McCutcheon, says, “I can’t foresee anybody killing anybody on this show, but there is that twist to it now.” Looks like I wasn’t the only skeptic.

We’ve got suspects, we’ve got suspects! Suspects include, but are not limited to, Jenny’s circle of friends: Bette, Tina, Shane, Alice, Helena, Max, and Niki. That Jenny may have been killed by one of her friends is a horse of a pill for me to swallow, but I’m willing to play along. From the few scenes they showed of the upcoming season, it looks like Jenny is out of control, and I mean, more than usual. Whatever Jenny does, would it really push one of her friends to murder?

The last we saw of Jenny, it seemed as though she should be the one doing the killing after walking in on Shane sticking it to Jenny’s love, Niki (Kate French). It’s going to be interesting to see how it all plays out and how she went from jilted lover and betrayed friend to… dead.

I have my theory as to how she died, but I’ll sit on it for now. If you think you know, post it here or cast your vote at: sho.com.

Let’s face it; Jenny was a hot ass mess. But she will be missed.

The L Word premieres Sunday, January 18th at 9pm on Showtime.

If you want to catch the teaser, Who Killed Jenny Schecter?, it airs on the following dates and times:

Jan 12 – 11:05pm

Jan 16 – 2:35 am

Jan 16 – 10:50pm

Jan 17 – 1:50am

It’s also available on Showtime On Demand.