The L Word is back with Generation Q, and Pride is here to bring you a character-by-character recap so you can keep tabs on your old faves and your new friends without turning on the TV or watching storylines you’re just not that into. Tina and Jenny might be gone, Alice might no longer be keeping up with The Chart, but this is still the way, it’s the way that we live, it’s the way that we live and love.
Previously on ‘The L Word: Generation Q’…Dani quit working for her father to join Bette’s campaign, Alice made tentative peace with her partner’s ex-wife, Shane met a couple of queer ladies who want to turn a sports bar back into a gay bar, Finley started hooking up with Rebecca, Micah took the next step with Jose, and Sophie lost herself in worry that new fiancée Dani would keep making decisions without her.
You can read our full recap of episode 1x02 here.
And now we dive into episode 1x03, “Lost Love”…
BETTE
Bette’s mayoral topic of the week is education. After Angie gets suspended from school for getting into a fight, Dani and Pierce try to convince Bette that moving Angie from private school to public school would make for better optics, as funneling money into the public school system is part of the platform Bette is campaigning on. As it stands, with Angie bouncing between fancy private schools, Bette looks like a hypocrite, and Dani is worried education will be an easy target for her opponent at an upcoming debate.
While her staff fails to convince her that public school is the right choice for her daughter, Angie is able to make the case for herself, and when Mr. Straight White Opponent tries to pull the “but your kid goes to private school” card at the debate, Bette smacks him down by breaking the news of Angie’s public school enrollment and championing the diversity of public schools, earning herself an endorsement from the Teacher’s Union.
But Bette’s campaign isn’t in the clear just yet. As she watches the results of the debate alone in her hotel room, there comes a knock at the door. And…yep, it’s Felicity. And unbeknownst to either of them, Dani watches Bette let her in.
Lingering thoughts: During a discussion with Shane, we find out that Bette is actually still reeling from Tina leaving her. It’s really too bad Laurel Holloman isn’t coming back for some sort of decade later resolution with our og golden couple.
DANI
Dani’s got a lot of parental issues to work through, but Daddy Nunez seems willing to make peace. He asks Dani to meet up for lunch, and while he’s still clearly not over her ditching his company to run PR for Bette, he seems to have come around on the wedding sitch. He doesn’t even refer to Sophie as Dani’s “friend” once this whole episode! Of course, he doesn’t refer to Sophie much at all.
Though things seem to be looking up when he surprises Dani with the news that he booked a tour of the Biltmore Hotel as a possible wedding venue, it’s eventually revealed that he already booked the whole damn thing. BTW, ladies, you’re getting married on May 10th! Naturally, this leads to a fight with Sophie, who understands that Dani doesn’t want to hurt her dad’s feelings, but needs Dani to understand the flip side is that Sophie is the one getting hurt.
Lingering thoughts: Dani’s (presumably deceased) mom comes up a lot during this episode, from wanting to wear her wedding dress, to Daddy Nunez talking about how his wife would have wanted so much more extravagance for Dani’s wedding than they had at theirs. Will we learn more about her mom soon?
SHANE
So Shane bought the bar. Alice thinks it’s fantastic that Shane’s settling down in LA again, but Bette is worried she’s being impulsive. “I don’t think you should make any life-changing decisions when you’re heartbroken, that’s all.” Bette, you’re not wrong. But Shane’s gonna do what Shane’s gonna do, and when Tess and Lena show up for work, she asks Tess to come on and run the thing.
While Bette eventually shows up with flowers to apologize for not being supportive, Shane admits that part of her just wanted to forget that she’s about to go through a divorce and lose the woman she loves.
Lena comes by later to thank Shane for buying the bar, and to let her know that things are done with Tess. She doesn’t see Lena the way…Lena seems to think Shane does, for some reason, although literally all Shane has done (understandably) is mope around about her wife. But Lena makes a move, and Shane is Shane, and though we cut away, they definitely fucked in the backroom of the bar.
Lingering thoughts: This isn’t going to go terribly wrong or anything. Definitely not. Sidenote, is Finley still living at Shane’s?
FINLEY
Finley gets the shock of a lifetime when her new gal pal Rebecca bounces out of their morning sexy times to go to church. On a Tuesday. But Rebecca’s church is on Sophie’s list of potential wedding venues, so Finley tags along with her friend to check it out — only to get an even bigger shock when she discovers Rebecca isn’t just attending church, she’s the preacher. Or priest. Or something. It’s unclear what denomination this is, exactly.
Rebecca ultimately tells Finley she’s “more closeted about being Christian than about being queer” and urges Finley to return to her Catholic roots. Our girl clearly has a whole lot of baggage when it comes to religion, but by the end of the episode, she finds herself crying in an empty Catholic church with Rebecca by her side.
Lingering thoughts: Hopefully this show doesn’t throw out the idea that being Christian is more stigmatized than being queer without challenging it. Some Christians are queer and some queers are Christians, but that doesn’t change the fact that the institution of religion is still against our existence.
ALICE
Alice is is somehow just finding out, after something like two years of dating, that Nat has no friends whatsoever. They all flocked to Gigi in the breakup, because she’s “the cool one.” After Nat denies Alice’s offering up of her own friends, Alice gets the bright idea to try to get Nat and Gigi to start hanging out again. Naturally, it’s a questionable idea at best, and Alice ends up feeling awkward and left out as the two ex-wives reminisce about old friends and inside jokes. But at the end of the day, Alice is the one slipping into pjs and watching episodes of Naked and Afraid with Nat, not Gigi, and all seems well in paradise once more.
Lingering thoughts: Alice and Nat continue to be a jarringly positive example of making a relationship work in the middle of a modern, complicated situation. So when’s the other shoe gonna drop?
MICAH
Micah is excited about a special date he has scheduled with José. It’s some pretentious art event, and Micah even goes to all the trouble of researching things to talk about, so he can be “as pretentious as you,” as he tells the hot property manager. Unfortunately, José cancels at the very last minute, saying he needs time to take care of some things. Micah responds by fucking the first hot guy he finds on some Grindr-esque app, an apparently repetitive reaction Micah has to rejection, and something Sophie insists he shouldn’t feel badly about. “It’s okay to be hurt, and it’s okay to fuck somebody.” Sage advice, Soph.
Lingering thoughts: José bailed on the date not long after Micah spotted a hot stranger sunning by the apartment pool. This guy is almost certainly about to dump some drama into these boys’ budding relationship.
ANGIE
Angie’s getting into trouble once again, although for a much better reason this time. A bitch classmate of hers calls Bette a slut, and Angie punches her in the face. She winds up getting suspended, while her white classmate faces no repercussions. On the plus side, Bette isn’t mad, and she and Angie have a heart-to-heart about how the rules are going to be different for Angie because she’s black. But Angie is tired of being the token “diversity” kid at her schools, and when the opportunity to move on over to public school presents herself, she knows just how to convince her mom that it’s the right move.
Lingering thoughts: Whether Bette likes it or not, we’re definitely about to be seeing more of Jordi. And there’s no way Angie isn’t getting herself in plenty more trouble the second she steps foot in her new public school.
This episode feels a little filler, and series regular Sophie just kind of bounced around everyone else's storylines rather than getting one of her own. But we did score an excellent guest appearance by Megan Rapinoe for no apparent reason other than that she's Megan Rapinoe and Alice's show is a great excuse to have celesbians pop in and say hi on Gen Q.
And while we didn't revisit some of our more pressing questions from the previous episodes (Why is Bette really running for office? Will Finley ever leave Shane's house? Where the hell is Carmen??), we did at least dwell on the mystery of Shane's soon-to-be-ex-wife a little more, even if we didn't get any answers. Like, at all.
Next time, on 'The L Word: Generation Q'...
