When Go On announced its plan to engage Anne and Ryan in a love triangle with Courteney Cox, we were half jubilation and half trepidation. Jubilation because we can’t get enough of Julie White‘s grieving lesbian character. Trepidation because how could the show’s writers possibly treat her fairly when pitting her against one of TV’s most beloved sitcom couples? But, like everything else Go On has done with Anne this season, the bi-curious Chandler/Monica reunion was hilarious and poignant and truly refreshing.
The episode kicked off with Anne offering to be Ryan King’s wingman and introduce him to Talia, a grieving widow she met at the cemetery when she was visiting her wife’s grave. They accidentally get themselves into a three-person dinner date situation – “Dammit, King, what is this, junior high? Am I going to have to unhook her bra for you too?” – but Anne says she’s bouncing as soon as Talia gives Ryan a sign that she’s into him. But during their dinner, Talia begins to flirt with both of them. She exposes her neck to Ryan (the way cats do when they want to mate) and touches Anne’s arm. When Talia excuses herself to the ladies room, Ryan tells Anne to skedaddle, but she says, “Did you see the eye contact [she gave me when she said] ‘I’m so glad we met’? Am I still wearing clothes, because I don’t mean to be!” Anne finally asks Talia which one of them she’s into – even though Ryan protests that it’s not cool, and Anne has to explain to him that neither of them are cool – and Talia says she’s into both of them. She just loves the attention! She invites them both back to dinner the following night, but Ryan and Anne agree among themselves not to make a competition about it. But when Anne shows up at support group the next day “tarted up” she explains that she’s in it to win it because: “I woke up horny.”
At dinner, Ryan and Anne make their cases for Talia’s companionship. Anne’s case: “OK, the appeal of men is unassailable: their hairy backs, their bad breath, their zebra pants. But women, we have a few attributes: empathy, emotional intelligence, boobs.”
After taking Talia to the loo (“where there are couches”) she decides that she’s a little too cuckoo for comfort and gives her to Ryan – who discovers that Anne’s lesbian intuition was absolutely correct when Talia steals a car, runs a red light, and abandons the scene when the cops pull her over. With every episode of Go On that airs, I am more and more convinced that she is the lesbian messiah we have been begging for in a sitcom character. She’s gorgeous, she’s smart, she’s hilarious, and the writers never shy away from her lesbiaism. The pain of her loss is the same as the pain of Ryan’s loss, her desire for companionship is the same as Ryan’s desire for companionship, her need for sex is the same as his need for sex. Just not a threesome. Women only. (She had a husband once. “It was a mistake. I rectified it. We do that.”)
Also, Anne is just really, really cool. At the end of last night’s episode, she told Ryan: “That thing you think you have with women? I actually have it.”
And yes, she really does.
What did you think of the Anne/Monica/Chandler love triangle?
