does anyone here still watch The L Word?
I’m dying for some commiseration. none of my friends watch it (they make fun of me for it, actually), and the livejournal communities have about the collective intelligence of a box of hair.
is there enough support here for a weekly discussion of the most recent episode? or should I just drop my diatribe here and watch it fade silently away into obscurity?
No you’re not the only one watching.
I tend to watch two or three episodes at a time (On Demand) so couldn’t really participate in a weekly discussion. I did just catch up last night and have a question, though.
Are we supposed to know what happened between Alice and Dana? I remember last season ending with them together and happy, then this season starts and they’re apart. Did I miss an episode or have they just not told this story, yet?
yeah, you may have missed one, 'cause they didn’t end last season very happy. they were still together, but there was a lot of tension over Alice being too pushy and clingy and too-much-too-soon. 6 months passed between last season and this one, during which Dana apparently told Alice she needed a break to get some resolution on her & Lara (something like that), but the break obviously became indefinite.
I’m kinda ambivalent on Dana’s love life anymore. It was no good with Alice, 'cause it made her act all weird (still is) and I adore Alice. It’s alright with Lara, I guess, but it just seems so generic. Lara brings out the boring in Dana.
ooh, say, I have a question too. what do you think of this whole new Buddy Helena? man, she was such a viper last season, and then apparently she did some crazy flip-flop over the 6-month interim and she’s just everybody’s pal. wtf did I miss??
This season is losing me. I don’t like Helena. I don’t like Tina being a bitch. I don’t like Bette thinking of cheating again. I don’t like anything except Shane and the DJ What’s Her Name?. At least Jenny isn’t wacko anymore. I’ll keep watching for awhile because of Alan Cumming in a very Antony of Antony and the Johnsons role.
This season is even more ridiculously predictable than the last. My partner and I knew after watching the season premiere that
[spoiler]Kit would begin a flirtatious dance with the manny, that Dana would be diagnosed with the big C, that Moira/Max would be considering gender reassignment, and that Tina would go to the dark side (ie, men) and that Bette would be given another opportunity to cheat and would not take it.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love the show. 
One thing I hate though is what a petty bitch Tina has become and there’s no explanation for Helena softening up and not being such a manipulative twat as she was last season. I really want to hate her and now I’m finding it difficult.
I’d really like to see Lara become a multi-dimensional character. You’d think by now they’d have filled her out some but they give her about as much depth as a sheet of rice paper. [/spoiler]
I rarely get to watch the show on Sundays, but I’m still following it through afterellen.com’s ScribeGrrl recaps and my girlfriend’s recaps.
Caught a few episodes early on; lost patience when it became clear that the characters were going out of their way to be mean to each other and destructive of themselves. The fact that most of the characters are lesbians isn’t enough to distinguish them from any other prime-time soap.
I did chuckle at the “hasbian” line, though.
I’ve watched the first two seasons on DVD, so (1) yes I’m watching it, but (2) no I can’t discuss any current goings-on.
well, good to see I’m not the only one, but close enough…
oh well, since we’re here.
Homebrew (and Chao),
do you not like Helena, or do you not like that they’ve made her suddenly likable? for me it’s the latter… because christ, the woman is smoking. I want to still hate her, but she’s for whatever reason just simply stopped being a cuntrag, and that combined with her exquisite hotness renders me powerless to resist.
I really hate Tina being a bitch, though. it just seems so totally out of character for her! I don’t think Laurel Holloman is even good at playing an unsympathetic role… it seems like every bitchy word she says just burns like acid. it’s pretty stupid, too, as Bette’s done some very deserving things in the past, and she’s really not doing anything worth bitching about now. speaking of Bette, though, I think Bette’s cheating days are over. it’s kind of a shame, really… I like predatory, dominant, alpha Bette. if her girlfriend isn’t going to melt for her, somebody damn well better!
Shane and Carmen are fucking adorable. however, I’ve seen the 5th episode already, and you’re going to hate that. I did. =[
yeah, and I’m so grateful they’re sparing us Jenny’s inner turmoil this season. she seems like a much stronger, much less annoying character now. thank you. oh, how I wanted to rip my eyeballs out every time they did one of her stupid writing scenes. I’m so glad she’s out of the psychotic phase.
Bryan, yeah… you’d probably despise this season then. one thing that particularly gets me is that people in this show are so quick to get pissy, and so reluctant to ever resolve what’s making them that way! it’s like, oh, she did something annoying, eh, don’t feel like talking about it, I’ll just go have sex with someone else. it’s fucked up and dysfunctional! people in the real world don’t behave that way, at least not nearly as often as the show suggests. I mean, I know they need their drama, but you can have plenty of drama without everyone just being complete whores.
Nevermore I couldn’t agree with your assessment and critique more. To answer your question, I am actually liking Helena this season but I don’t want to. I liked having a manipulative bitch to hate last season. The thing that bothers me about the writers is the way they will have a character do a 180 with no explanation for the impetus of their personality changes.
So, Helena seems to actually care about the “gang.” She’s beginning a new financial venture and seems truly interested in the artistic value of her new job instead of strictly looking at the bottom line. Why? What caused this change? She seemed “smitten” with the woman who wrote the documentary rather than predatory. WHY?
At the end of last season, it sure seemed to me, that Tina really wanted to start over with Bette and work on the relationship so they could raise the baby together. This season it’s as though she just has Bette around to help out with expenses and child care and to punish her for her discretions. :rolleyes:
All of the sudden she’s this Uber Bitch. She’s not even acting in an “alpha” sense. She’s just being selfish and bitchy. WHY? What changed from the end of last season to the beginning of this one. The mind boggles.
I realize it’s a soap opera. That’s fine. It’s supposed to be a little unrealistic. But, dammit, there’s no excuse for the sloppy writing. It’s like the writers are so desperate to demonstrate such a wide variety of the socio-political aspects involved in lesbian life that the stories read like a crappy sentence fragment. I know it’s got to be a great feeling to finally have a voice that can reach a more mainstream audience after decades, well hell, centuries, of being silenced but damn. If you’re going to do it, do it justice. Like you said Nevermore there’s plenty of drama out there to pull from without having to contrive weak and cliche’ plot devices to draw in an audience.