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The Best and Worst of ” The L Word” Season 5

The L Word has always been a gold mine for those who love lesbian drama, and Season 5 was no exception. Oh, sure, there are women who have never seen a single episode and still live happy, productive lives. Or so I’m told. For the rest of us, The L Word remains the best game in town for dissecting and dishing, ranting and raving, and ogling and guffawing at those fictional lesbians in LaLa Land.

Next year will be the last season of the series that revolutionized the way television portrays lesbian lives, added “crisp-ay,” “nipple confidence” and “clique up” to our lexicon, and showcased L.A. lesbian fashion with a distinct je ne sais quoi (which is French for “what the hell is she wearing?”).

Whatever resolutions the final season of The L Word brings in 2009, we’ll always have this: a thoroughly unscientific and totally random list of the best and worst of Season 5. Let the processing begin!

Best Relationship: Bette and Tina These two crazy kids finally realized what their friends have known all along: They belong together. And because I’ve had Pat Benatar on the brain lately, I can’t help but hear, “Whatever we deny or embrace, for worse or for better … we belong, we belong, we belong together …”

Prior to Season 4, Ilene Chaiken told Go NYC magazine, “We never tell a story based on what the audience wants.” And by “what the audience wants,” she meant continuity, happy couples and Dana. Maybe Ilene is getting soft in her old age, because TiBette is back.

Whether Mama B. and Mama T. stay together long enough to see Angelica graduate from kindergarten remains to be seen. Until then, they’ll continue to channel John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Worst Relationship: Bette and Jodi Apologies to Marlee Matlin, but I never did get invested in Bette and Jodi as a couple. I felt like Bette did during her weekend at Big Bear with Jodi’s numskull friends: I tried to make the best of it, but honestly, I just couldn’t wait for the whole thing to be over. Now that their relationship is kaput and we saw Jodi’s hateful side come out in her art, all I can say is “good riddance.” Second place goes to Bette and her id, inappropriate sex drive, love of guilt or whatever it is that makes her a well-dressed, high-functioning drama addict. Best Continuity: Ivan Aycock Who else completely forgot that Ivan owns a stake in The Planet? When SheBitch Dawn Denbo announced that Ivan had sold his/her share to her, the show’s writers acknowledged something that happened in Season 2. Imagine that.

What Denbo didn’t tell us is that Ivan sold his share for a $500 gift card to Babeland and 30 yards of Ace bandages.

Worst Continuity: Papi Oh Papi, where art thou? Papi was Tasha’s best homegirl. In fact, Papi was the one who introduced Tasha to everyone. Papi had friends, Papi had hats, Papi had Alice. Papi was a supernova on the Chart. And yet, this year, there was nary a mention of Papi’s whereabouts. Did she find Ms. Right and settle down in Long Beach? Did she have a falling out with Tasha? Is she trapped under something heavy? Guess we’ll never know.

Second place goes to Wax, Shane’s hair salon and mini skateboard park that mysteriously melted to the ground at the start of this season. The Los Angeles Fire Department’s Arson Unit must still be working on that little investigation.

Most Improved: Tina Tina’s been the passive partner, cuckolded spouse, baby oven and hetero homemaker, but as a movie studio mogul, she’s finally come into her own – and it showed. Tina exhibited Zen-like calm when dealing with Jenny, Niki and Adele, and she was usually the only sane person in the conference room. Additionally, there was something sexy about the way she wielded her visitor’s pass power on the Lez Girls set.

And how ’bout her kick-ass body? It bounced back from childbirth quite nicely, and she wasn’t afraid to flaunt it. Tina’s confidence – nipple and otherwise – was refreshing. She’s so together now, Bette even asked her for advice during the art-student-with-gun crisis at school. When was the last time Bette asked Tina’s advice on anything?

Turn for the Worse: Jenny Have you ever wanted to smack someone you couldn’t take your eyes off? Other than Lindsay Lohan, I mean?

One New Yorker story and a subsequent book deal were all it took to turn harmlessly kooky Jennifer Schecter into a full-blown Diva on Crack. With her cast and crew, Jenny was arrogant and too hard. With Niki, her leading lady friend, she was indulgent and too soft. She became insane and insanely self-absorbed which, in Hollywood, was just right.

The only thing that made Jenny tolerable – and even fun to watch – was Mia Kirshner’s great delivery of lines such as, “It might be nice if you look like you’re actually giving her pleasure rather than moving furniture.” The show returned Jenny’s soul to her in the 11th hour when BFF Shane visited real betrayal and heartbreak upon her, so maybe there’s hope for Ms. Schecter yet.

Best New Character: Dawn Denbo Whatever Denbo wants, Denbo gets. Rumor has it that the line “I’m Dawn Denbo, and this is my beautiful lover Cindi” wasn’t terribly prominent in the script until Elizabeth Keener latched onto it. Then, before you could say “Puppies!” it was all the rage.

Whether she was planting rats at The Planet, giving Shane sexual ultimatums, or disrupting a Lez Girls shoot and walking away with a cool five grand, Dawn Denbo still found time to organize Turkish Oil Wrestling. You have to respect the Double D’s work ethic.

Worst New Character: Adele Channing Is that even her real name? Just look at those shifty, soulless eyes and her cold body language. Adele screams sociopath, but in a language only Max understood (until recently). As scribegrrrl theorized, Adele might even complete her All About Eve-il journey with a walk to the podium to pick up her Oscar for Lez Girls.

But as vile as Jenny was, no one deserved Adele. Despite her heinous machinations and backstabbing, Adele’s ultimate crime was selling out the ending of Lez Girls by sending Jenny/Jesse back to Tim/Jim and getting a three-picture deal out of it.

It’s always the quiet ones.

Best Career Move: Adele Yes, she’s a bitch of epic proportions. But if professional advancement is the sole criteria, I have to go with Adele. With only a tattered copy of Some of Her Parts and a (sick) dream, Adele “Chameleon” Channing came from nowhere and went from being the unwashed loiterer sitting alone at The Planet to a major film director in only 127 carefully calculated, perfectly executed moves.

Actually, all she did was wait for Jenny to screw up and be there to collect the video evidence, but still. Whatever happened to those discs, anyway, and where can we buy our copies?

Even though she’s the Antichrist, Adele accomplished her goal in an industry that’s notoriously hard to break into, and for that, I begrudgingly have to admit, she excelled.

Worst Career Move: Tasha The opposite of Adele would be Tasha. Adele was ruthless and got her brass ring, while Tasha was stubborn and got zip. She was offered a chance to resign from the military with full health bennies and a clean record but turned it down on principle. Admirable, until she needs a pap smear. She got booted out of the Army anyway and now has no health insurance or retirement plan.

I admire Tasha’s sense of honor, but unless Alice gets picked up by The Look and stops messing with Clea the Kiwi fashion designer, Tasha doesn’t have a dental plan to take care of those blindingly white teeth of hers. Best Quotes: Jenny’s divalicious lines Here’s a small sampling of my favorite Jenny gems. What are yours?

  • “[Sounder] hates you. So take him back to the groomer’s now and get orange ribbons so he can like you again.” (Episode 5.1)
  • “I love this watch. It’s so expensive. I can buy a house … in Cambodia.” (Episode 5.4)
  • “Adele, the appliqué on the back of your jeans was declared an abomination by the Geneva Convention.” (Episode 5.6)
  • “I will not continue this conversation until you remove the piece of snot that’s dangling from your nose.” (Episode 5.8)
  • “The dumb s— actor boy is no longer fired.” (Episode 5.9)
  • “She has a face like an extra.” (Episode 5.9)
  • “Do you know my friends think I’m out of my mind because I’m in love with you?” (Episode 5.10)
Although she should have stopped at, “Do you know my friends think I’m out of my mind?”

Worst Quote: “Weird. Boobs.” – Molly The first time Molly and Shane were about to have sex, Molly looked at Shane’s bare chest and blurted out: “Weird. Boobs.” Mood-killer! Is Molly supposed to be adorable? I found her am-I-doing-this-right shtick annoying. I’ve been with a few straight women, and none of them ever said anything that clueless.

Think about it: “Weird. Boobs.” Really? The only thing she could have said that would have been worse would be the single sentence, “Weird boobs.” Strike that. The worst thing she could have said would have been, “Do you mind if my boyfriend watches?”

Best accessory: Niki’s dildo

Much has been said about how The L Word depicts the things lesbians do in bed (or in their trailers between takes). Season 5 broke new ground by actually showing some close-up action of two women going to town with some sex toys. I feel so dirty. But let’s see that again. Worst accessory: Jenny’s affectations If she wasn’t carrying Sounder around like a designer handbag, Jenny was wearing those ridiculous Swifty Lazar glasses or dragging her former assistant around like a train on her gown of self-importance. Everybody knows that real directors wear bandannas and baseball caps.

Way Hot: Bette and Tina’s dirty talk For two straight women one straight women, Jennifer Beals (who is straight) and Laurel Holloman (who is not) sure do know how to fake a lesbian sex scene. On We’re Getting Nowhere, we often give props to Mia Kirshner’s acting and to Angela Robinson’s directing, but Beals and Holloman deserve two snaps up for their ability to make sexy time look so sexy. Shane is supposed to be the group’s drool-worthy lothario, but her and Molly’s “you’re wet” scene doesn’t begin to compare to Tina’s “you’re so wet” scene with Bette.

Way Not: Jodi taking “control” of Bette Ugh. If Jodi had given Bette some paper tails and pins and pushed her toward a poster of a donkey, I would have liked this scene. But that’s not what happened.

Instead, we got yet another awkward grappling with no physical chemistry. The added spice of a little bondage play added nothing and probably made it worse – Max and Tom had more heat.

All they were missing was a third woman with a ball gag in her mouth to complete the picture. If Jodi returns next year and tries to blindfold anyone again, I hope she brings enough for the rest of us.

Best ensemble: Anything worn by Jennifer Beals When I lived on the East Coast, my friends and I would watch the show and say things like, “That would never happen,” “Shane’s not a butch” and “Who dresses like that?” I wasn’t alone in feeling that The L Word did a poor job of representing our community. Filmmaker Dasha Snyder made a hilarious parody called The D Word with “people who look like people” (and butches who look like Julie Goldman) to drive the point home.

But now that I live in L.A., I’m here to tell you yes, the drama on The L Word is real, some Hollywood lesbians really do look like that, and L.A. lesbian couture has a style all its own.

Bette’s had some fashion missteps in the past, but this season, she had it going on. Worst ensemble: Jodi’s Incan housecoat Human sacrifice. It’s what’s for dinner.

Jodi is perfectly capable of looking smashing, as she did when she exacted her revenge on Bette in the season finale. In fact, that was the best she’s looked all season. Why she chose to throw on this nightmare is beyond me, except maybe her grass skirt and coconut bra were at the cleaners.

Best Use of Animals: Kangaroos This is my favorite scribegrrrl recap image, ever.

Worst Use of Animals: Sounder Here, Sounder. Here, boy! Has anyone seen Jenny’s dog lately?

If Sounder had any sense, he would have run away. But knowing Adele, she drove him 50 miles outside the city and threw him out of a moving car. We’ll miss you, our orange-beribboned friend.

What were your favorite best/worst moments? What other categories can you think of? Do tell.

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