overnights

‘The L Word’: No Turkish Oil Wrestling!

We were serious about there not being any Turkish oil wrestling.Photo courtesy of Showtime


If the Turkish-oil-wrestling episode of The L Word was like a night on Ecstasy (it felt amazing at the time, but left a bad taste in your mouth and made your back hurt), this week’s show was the serotonin-starved day after: No. Fun. At. All. Lez Girls actress Niki Stevens gets the chance to star in a blockbuster action flick — except those pesky photos of her grappling with her girlfriend in a greasy pit have her management in a tizzy. Tina’s solution? Get a hot, young Hollywood stud, rather than Jenny, to accompany Niki to a big movie premiere. An invitation also has Bette playing Debbie Downer yet again: Jodi asks Tina and her DP Sam to a dinner party, which provides the pouty Bette and her ex with another opportunity to be awkward and contemplate reuniting. But wait, there’s more: What could be sexier than Tasha’s military-expulsion hearing?

Hookups
One of Lez Girls’ ostensibly straight stars attempts to throw herself at Shane, who wards her off … [crickets] … Yup, that was it for topless time. Hope you got an eyeful last week during all those slo-mo shots of Jenny and Niki thrashing around in the oil, guys — we mean gals!

Processing
At Tasha’s hearing, a former underling crumbles on the stand under the tough questioning of the lesbionic prosecutor. (Not one person giggled when the junior officer was asked if she’d like to serve under Tasha in the future. Where’s Beavis when you need him?) When “self-professed lesbian” Alice takes the stand, she — you guessed it — mixes it up enough to make Colonel Gillian Davis nervous. In a bizarre reversal, the colonel offers to take it easy on Tasha if Alice agrees to ixnay the outing-ay, but Tasha instead takes the stand, outs herself, announces she loves Alice, and then kisses the host of Alice in Lesboland in front of all her former colleagues. What a tidy way to wrap up that pesky little story line!

Shane continues to chase (increasingly unconvincing straight girl) Molly Kroll, who is bored with her safe boyfriend and safe plan to go to law school. Knowing full well that Shane is an uneducated Lothario (her mom’s words, not ours, though they made us chuckle), Molly dares to dip a toe into Shane’s rocky waters.

Adele’s Campaign of Creepy carries on at the film premiere, where she torments Jenny by venturing inside (ostensibly to get Niki to let them in) and not returning; she later gives Niki instructions to kiss her boy escort on the red carpet to the delight of the paparazzi and dismay of Jenny Schecter. So, let’s get this straight: Nobody wonders why the mousy assistant is suddenly hot. Or why she suddenly knows so much about the movie biz. Or why she is suddenly confident and bossy. The ever-skeptical Max doesn’t appear this week. Neither does the MIA Helena, and Kit gets one line. We majored in semiotics, not logic, but here’s a little “if A, then B” puzzle: Jenny is detestable. If Jenny is obsessed with her own movie, and The L Word is now obsessed with that movie … oh, screw it, we’ll just watch the oil-wrestling footage again. —Chelsea Brady

‘The L Word’: No Turkish Oil Wrestling!