C’mere, you big whore!Photo courtesy of Showtime
‘The L Word’ Season Finale: You Have Got to Be Kidding
You know it’s an election year when a lesbian show that’s dabbled in Turkish oil wrestling turns its focus to something as dry as “core values” for its season finale. “Loyal and True” is the name of the episode, and the trueness and loyalty of pretty much all the characters is tested: Alice contemplates cheating on Tasha; Jodi exposes Bette by using her as fodder for an art project; Adele further betrays Jenny and Lez Girls by changing the movie’s ending to please the movie studio; Helena returns from her nine-episode hiatus to help Kit reclaim what’s rightfully hers; Shane causes a whole world of hurt. Don’t worry, the show stayed loyal and true to itself, too: affixing quick and easy resolutions to complex story lines, casting aside little things like character development, and keeping our “oh, please — that’s absolutely ridiculous!” drinking game going strong. Yup, we’re wasted! Strangely, the show doesn’t look any hotter.
Hookups
Shane and Molly kick things off with a little pre-breakfast sex before they go to meet Molly’s mom, Phyllis. Hey, that’s great! Maybe things will work out for these crazy kids! … Oh, wait. The episode ends with Shane fucking Jenny Schecter’s beloved Nikki at the Lez Girls wrap party. Now how did that happen?
Processing
After scooting off to a remote island with her cellmate Dusty, Helena returns to Los Angeles to tend to her mother, who was bitten by a rare jellyfish (hint: You can drink now). In a complete 180, Peggy Peabody tells Helena to take her fortune and do whatever she wishes, so Helena makes Dawn Denbo’s lover, Cindi, an offer she can’t refuse and buys SheBar and the Planet back for Kit. One story line down!
Tasha’s post-military career turns blue collar, literally. She quits her new security job and decides to follow some friends to the LAPD. This clearly doesn’t please Alice, who’s already thinking about ditching Tasha for the Aussie fashion designer she met on The Look. The two take a Vespa ride and nearly kiss, but Alice can’t do it — yet. Maybe it’s because they’re both dressed like they’re Amish.
Tina and Bette are ready to restart their lives together, but first Bette must give a speech introducing Jodi’s big, impressive art project to all her colleagues and friends. To Bette’s horror, the multimedia piece is about her breakup with Jodi. As far as psycho lesbian revenge fantasies go, even this is a doozy.
Molly’s insistence that she’ll give up a summer internship at the Supreme Court to hang out with Shane leads her mom to confront the lesbian Fonz with some compelling reasons — well, one reason — to break it off now: Shane can’t keep a relationship going, ever. In an attempt to be true to her own character, Shane flirts with another girl in front of Molly and can’t stop herself from hooking up with Nikki at the movie party.
Yes, the long, strange trip that was Lez Girls has thankfully come to its end: The movie is done, wrapped, ready for distribution, and Adele is not only a rising star, she’s fucking another one of the film’s actresses (ironically, the one who played Merina, the woman who originally seduced Jenny). Due to fears that the flick is “too gay,” Adele has altered the ending so “Jessie” winds up back with her boyfriend. But the real drama goes down at the PDA-heavy party, where Jenny shows up to applaud the crew and proclaim her love for Nikki, who is inconveniently half-naked and perched precariously on a railing so Shane can do her thang.
This was billed as the shocking conclusion: Shane ruins everything with her insatiable sex drive, a trope the show trots out every six episodes. What would have been really surprising? Jenny kills Adele at the premiere; Nikki falls backward and plummets to her death; Max gets more than two lines; the show does something — anything — to explain the whole Adele story line. But we got nothing but “the ultimate betrayal.” And how, L Word. —Chelsea Brady
‘The L Word’ Season Finale: You Have Got to Be Kidding
