Gen Q was officially cancelled last week and I have so many questions. Questions like, how does an engagement ring get lost in a bowl of mashed potatoes? Why doesn’t Micah, a therapist, know what “trauma bonding“ means? Why is Tess opening another lesbian bar directly next to the first lesbian bar? How is it possible that after all these years, Shane doesn’t know about open relationships? Why is everyone so stoked on Bette and Tina getting married? They just got divorced.
Gen Q was many things—tonally inconsistent, poorly paced, and at times, completely incomprehensible. It was a soap opera in an era of prestige television, a morality play about how drinking will destroy your life and hurt everyone you love, but drugs are okay and if you do them at a party, all your friends will laugh and enjoy your goofy antics. On the representation front, it cast a handful of trans and disabled actors but didn’t try that hard to tell trans and disabled stories. There was only one fat character and she was also the only butch character, and while it must be said that Rosie O’Donnell was resplendent as Carrie, her whole thing was being massively insecure and jealous of Bette. Then she has a heart attack and her thin friends step in to teach her about green juice and exercise. It doesn’t get much worse than that.
Like the original L Word, cheating and infidelity were the primary source of drama on Gen Q. Season 3 was especially preoccupied with the idea of soulmates or “the one,“ which is not how anyone I know--queer or straight, poly or monogamous--approaches love or dating. I neither want nor expect TV shows to be realistic, but Gen Q had a remarkably shaky grasp on how the world works, as well as how people talk or do things. It really seemed like zero research went into it, not even a quick Google on, say, how a queer couple might approach at-home insemination or the basics of the 12-step program. There are, however, multiple scenes where someone collides with food. Like when Tess drops a Thanksgiving turkey on Finley’s mom and a few episodes later, falls drunkenly into Bette and Tina’s wedding cake, which is randomly being transported during the ceremony. Poor Tess. She (and Jamie Clayton!) deserved so much more.
Gen Q loved to take two unrelated scenes and edit them into a montage. Like at the end of season 2, when Angie is dancing with her prom date while Marcus, her sperm donor, is writhing on a hospital bed and dying. Or the time in season 3, when Bette and Tina are celebrating their engagement and it’s intercut with Angie stealing into her creative writing professor’s office to have sex with him. And speaking of Angie and her professor, I will never get over the Halloween episode when she tells him that this is the one night a year that they can go out in public together even though neither of them are wearing masks or disguised in a meaningful way.
One of the most endearing things about Gen Q, at least to me, was the Looney Tunes-ass music and how the lyrics described what was going on in a given scene. Like at the beginning of the Halloween episode, the music was like, ”it’s spooky season! it’s spooky season!” Someone would be drinking too much and the music would be like, “This dyke is outta control!! Watch out! She’s drunk!!!“ I will miss the constant stream of guest stars like Kehlani and Joey Lauren Adams. I loved G Flip and Crishell at Bette and Tina’s wedding. Another thing Gen Q had going for it were sex scenes. They were so good!! At least until season 3, when they all but dried up. In their place were several moments of gross-out body humor: Angie pulled an errant condom out of her roommate’s vagina, Misty had a diarrhea emergency, and Carrie got a massive nosebleed that could only be quelled with nose tampons.
According to Deadline, Showtime and Ilene Chaiken are working on another L Word spin-off, tentatively called The L Word: New York. (Okay but does anyone remember The Real L Word and how season 3 was “NYC versus LA” themed? The New York lesbians were in a band called Hunter Valentine and the LA lesbians had so many tiny dogs. There was also a married couple who were struggling with infertility and their storyline was so profoundly sad, to the extent that it felt incongruous with the rest of the show, which was trash garbage. In one episode, the married lesbians return to the hospital after experiencing a stillbirth. They bring flowers to the butch nurse who took care of them and she affirmed that they were still parents, even though they never got a chance to know or raise their baby. And then the rest of the episode was just footage of the world’s worst lesbians grinding on each other in metallic bikinis. Wild stuff).
I started writing recaps of Gen Q in 2021, and a question I get all the time is whether or not the show--specifically how bad it is--makes me angry. The truth is that I never thought Gen Q was going to save us. I also realize that my perspective as someone who watches each episode multiple times and then writes a few thousands words about it is going to be a lot harsher than someone who watches for fun, hopefully with popcorn and a big group of friends. Do I think Gen Q is a wasted opportunity to do something interesting, or at least cool, with queer stories? Yes, absolutely. How could I not? I find solace in the face that most of the people involved are extremely talented and deserve the money and exposure gleaned by a stint at Showtime. I hope the future brings many more TV shows centered around lesbian, trans people, and queer women, but am I holding my breath for Gen Q: New York? Absolutely not.
In other news, it looks like Kate Moennig and Leisha Hailey are no longer following Marja Lewis-Ryan on Instagram.
If you want to take a moment to grieve and reflect alongside my Gen Q recaps, here are the links:
season 3: episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episode 4 (Halloween), episode 5 (eugenics), episode 6 (the musical), episode 7, episode 8 (Thanksgiving), and episode 9, and the season finale.
season 2: episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episode 4, episode 5, episode 6, episode 7, episode 8, episode 9, and the season finale.
Also I cannot say this sincerely enough—READ THE COMMENTS!! You, the readers of this newsletter, are all so smart and funny! You notice things that go totally over my head and I appreciate it so much.
I'll say it: I'm sad. This show was frequently offensive and even more frequently dumb, but it truly did bring me joy, including the joy of screaming at the television. The LA showbiz dykes who wrote for this show seemingly live in a different universe than I do and I yearn for the chance to sit them all down and ask them questions like "how" and "why." I will certainly watch whatever ill-conceived NYC show they come up with, but I loved watching Shane and Alice's friendship, and I was excited about Alice/Tasha, and I felt that some of the Gen Q'ers were hitting their stride this season, and Angie was such a treasure, and I wanted another season.
As my gf pointed out to me as we watched Bella gaze yearningly at Angie, this show had an unwavering commitment to never allowing a straight woman to exist, and I must salute to that. Thank you for your recaps, Maddy. They truly were the best.
Thank you for your tireless hours of digesting garbage and turning it into some really thoughtful and funny close-reads. Being a paid sub is worth every penny. I am now left wondering what I wondered after the OG series ended: will the rest of the cast continue to work? It seems like most of the OG cast has significant gaps in their resume which makes me wonder about them being typecast and then not hired as much for other gigs? Kate did Ray Donovan but Leisha has only really done bits and bobs of other things. I wonder if she does book keeping or something in her downtime to supplement. I’d be very surprised if the L word New York was picked up or even went into production. I can’t say my fingers aren’t crossed though. Not for the show, but for the recap fodder. Looking forward to your next Grub st. style post!
-faithful servant of the Big Krispy™️