The L Word: Generation Q season premiere review: It’s good to be back
The season premiere of The L Word: Generation Q manages to catch us up with Bette, Tina, and Alice while also introducing a crop of new lovable characters.
It’s been 10 years since we last saw Bette, Tina, and Shane, but the series premiere of The L Word: Generation Q doesn’t pick up with the characters we know and love right away. Instead, the first act of the episode introduces the eponymous Generation Q, the crop of new characters we’re going to be spending equal time with each week.
The episode opens with Dani and Sophie waking up in bed together. They have a fun, romantic energy and are far enough along in their relationship that everyone, not just Sophie, is pressuring Dani to propose.
Before too long, Finley, who is not unlike Joey Pogo from BoJack Horseman come to life, busts in with Dani and Sophie’s roommate, Micah, to gawk at the hot new neighbor moving in next door.
Next, we pick up with the original generation of characters. Not surprisingly, these women haven’t aged at all, and Bette/Jennifer Beals still looks amazing.
Though Tina is not on the show (presumably still in New York), their daughter Angie lives with Bette, and Bette frequently “talks to Tina” on the phone about Angie who is now a prep school teenager. Also not surprising, Bette is just as overbearing as ever.
Perhaps the winner for making the biggest strides in the last ten years, Alice is engaged to Nat (Stephanie Allyne) and is really giving the whole step-parent thing the old college try, despite being caught in the middle of Nat’s co-parenting with her ex.
We learn little about what has happened to Shane in the last decade, other than that Shane has mostly remained the same. Despite making enough money with a franchised hair salon to charter a private jet, Shane gave it all up to move back to Los Angeles.
Ultimately though, some things just never change — and Shane is one of those things. She was never interested in fame and success despite the fact that she was very talented at choppy gay haircuts of the aughts.
One shocking twist in the Shane saga is that she is married (not to Carmen sadly) and has left her wife behind. (Also, more scenes of Katherine Moennig boxing, please and thank you.)
Slowly but surely, the old and new generations weave together. Finley and Sophie work on Alice’s self-titled show (which has the greatest logo of any television show ever), while Dani and Bette meet in a political fundraising meeting.
Bette soon realizes that Dani’s dad’s company isn’t on the up-and-up (though it’s not entirely clear what the company is or what they do). It doesn’t take long for Bette to tear Dani apart. While the political storyline for her is a bit out of left field, it makes sense in some ways. Bette always did have a social-justice streak.
She says to Dani, “Do you know why I’m running for mayor?” She proceeds to explain that she wants to take on Big Pharma and dark money and blah blah blah, but ultimately, no. No, I really don’t know why Bette is running by the end of the episode. Hopefully, this will be cleared up in the weeks to come.
Bette tells Dani that the company is complicit in the opioid epidemic, so Bette won’t take a penny. Her advisor and Alice both refer to her having a very personal reason to run, but Bette never gives one. We know that Pam Grier won’t be reprising her role as Bette’s older sister, Kit. Kit was an addict (though she had been clean in the later season of The L Word). Is it possible that they’ve killed her off with an overdose?
Poor Bette’s campaign has barely launched before a sex scandal hits. We all should have seen this coming, right? It all comes to light when Bette makes a rookie mistake at her first town hall and opens up the Q&A way too wide. Someone in the audience asks about her having an affair with his wife while she was the Director of Cultural Affairs for the City of Los Angeles.
It’s a fascinating storyline not unlike Katie Hill‘s, as the show veers into more political territory. When women violate the same standards as men, what does it mean for those who have been traditionally marginalized?
Of course, it doesn’t take long for Angie to find out about her mom’s indiscretions. Though she had ditched school to get high with her friend, Angie is clearly still young enough that she thinks her mistakes don’t matter. But also, she is taking four AP classes and lives with Bette Porter. Girl needs to unwind.
Angie comes in angry at Bette, but Bette immediately figures out she’s high. Angie says she wants to live with Tina, but Bette counters that she’ll have to tell her she got high. She grounds her and apologizes, saying she deserves better.
Meanwhile, Dani and Sophie appear to be the new Tina and Bette (though hopefully more stable). After handling a huge PR nightmare at work, Dani gets offered a promotion, but her dad still wants her to be straight/in the closet.
After meeting Bette, Dani is questioning her values and why she is still working for her dad. Which is when she opens her glovebox and pulls out a ring box. Turns out, she’s had Sophie’s ring this whole time!
Setting up a simple proposal at home with candles and wine, Dani tells Sophie, “You’re my person. I need you in my life forever.” It’s really sweet, even if the ring doesn’t fit.
Finley and Micah bust in with champagne to celebrate, keeping the thread of found family and queer friendship from the original series strong. Perhaps missing from the episode is the emotional core for all of the women to gather and bump into each other — The Planet.
The show seems to be trying to replace this with Alice, bringing in the friends who aren’t working on the show to watch in the audience (or appear as guests in Bette’s case).
Overall, the episode is spinning a lot of plates, and there are some things that get the short shrift as a result — such as a great scene between Micah and the new hot neighbor, which includes casual but confident gender-neutral pronouns being dropped. So refreshing! Unfortunately, we don’t get more of it.
However, it still feels good to be back with these characters, old and new, and see what insanity they’ll be up to week to week.
Next. The L Word revival: What we can't wait to see. dark