Before the opening credits, Alice does a voiceover of having dreamed of Jenny’s script being filmed a la Charlie’s Angel style, with Alice as Farrah Fawcett, Helena as Kate Jackson and Shane as Jaclyn Smith, while Tina is playing the butch Bosley part and Bette is playing Charlie. Their mission: to find out, with the help of their gaydar guns, whether Jenny is lesbian, bisexual or straight.
In this episode:
Shane has sworn off sex. But Shane keeping her promise to swear off sex is about as likely as Bette keeping her promise to be monogamous, so we will see.
Anyway, Shane’s solution to keeping her promise to be celibate involves going early to the gym (although just seeing her in the gym and in a locker-room full of naked women instantly gives you the idea that this is not exactly a bright idea), meditation, a lot of video games and rebuffing every woman who will hit on her. Naturally her fellow gym-going friends, Tina and Alice, find her a freak, while Jenny just cannot be bothered, since she has a new assistant, creepy Adele, who dotes on her, even while they are in the gym.
Meanwhile, Max contemplates ditching lesbians and going for gay men instead,with the help of her encouraging assistant, while Helena has gone from frightened mouse to confident jailhouse mama with the advent of her tax-evading protector, lover and cellmate.
On the other side of the divide, Bette meets up with Jodi at the Planet hoping to wriggle her way out of meeting Jodi’s friends, but Jodi successfully cons her into joining the weekend getaway. Tina is visibly impressed (and probably slightly jealous) that Jodi can push perpetually alpha female Bette into attending a gathering she did not like. Tina’s impressed demeanor turns into horror as friends Alice and Shane, later joined by Jodi, are surfing Alice’s OurChart.Com social networking site for possible dates with lesbians other than Tina’s ex, Bette. Jodi and Tina bond over Nancy Drew (read a couple of those, but I’m more a Hardy Boys fan – goes to show you the kind of butch preoccupations I had when I was younger), while Jodi and Tom, her interpreter bond over Tom’s crush on Max. Why are Jodi and Tina in the same room? Jodi is doing a podcast for Alice.
Tasha is still being investigated for possible homosexual conduct (visions of “But I’m a Cheerleader” scenes with lesbians screaming “I’m a homosexual! I’m a homosexual” swim in my head), with a very uncooperative legal counsel.
Alice, meanwhile is doing the podcast with a very enthusiastic Jodi, who teaches them how to use their hands for dirty talk (I feel so dirty just recapping that). Shane is a very attentive pupil, until Kit reminds her she’s supposed to have sworn off sex forever. Kit, meanwhile, is not at all that happy when Alice becomes too personal about her sister Bette and Jodi’s sex life (wouldn’t you be?!? I certainly as hell don’t want to know about my sib’s sex life…that’s like finding out your parents have a healthy sex life. Eeeww.).
Bette joins Jodi for their weekend getaway with Jodi’s friends, only to realize that Jodi’s friends are a bunch of a**holes who embarass her with their knowledge of Bette and Jodi’s the-night-before sex, throw her into the river for refusing to play football with them (does Bette look like she plays games that involve a lot of running and grunting?), accuse her of being a snob, and of making up stories about her sister being robbed so she can get out of this hellish weekend getaway. Bette holds her own with Jodi’s friends (although you kind of wonder why they are Jodi’s friends to begin with), although you can see that it takes a supreme amount of control for her not to implode and explode at the same time infront of these friends. I know these scenes are totally relevant to the brewing plot involving Tina, but I just think they’re unnecessary and totally better off being fastforwarded on your DVD player.
Anyway, Kit gets robbed and that gives Bette the excuse to fly out of there. Kit is devastated, since apparently it’s the whole week’s earnings that the robbers had managed to rob from her at gunpoint (I think the writers here are just lazy – I’ve worked in a restaurant and I know no smart manager ever stashes the week’s earnings away in a safe inside the restaurant for robbers to conveniently steal after. Sigh. What this show usually lacks: writers who know their sh*t), but with her sister and Jodi comforting her, Kit manages to survive the ordeal with nary a sip of alcohol.
Meanwhile, Tina manages to snag a date and a one-night stand with a heart surgeon whose augmented breasts effectively foreshadow that we won’t be seeing much of the heart surgeon soon.
Helena finally gets out of prison courtesy of her mother (played by the gorgeous Holland Taylor) and plans her own permanent vacation with her tax evading prison daddy somewhere in the Pacific.
1. Tina playing butch Bosley – genius! Throwback to the baby butch Randy Dean days of “Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love”
2. Charlie’s Angel homage – Fun! Definitely way better than Jenny’s carnival-centric stories (whatever happened to those anyway?!? On second thought, I’m glad that’s not the one being filmed!). Is it me, or is this season full of homages?
3. Still no baby Angelica. I wonder where Angelica is as Bette goes off on her weekend getaway with Jodi and Tina gets her one-night stand with the breast-augmented heart surgeon? Obviusly not at Kit’s since she just got robbed, and of course you can’t trust Shane or Alice since they can’t seem to get their sh*t together. Angelica is one self-sufficient little kid!
Mi Li (Mylene Jampanoi) is a young, half-Chinese, half-Russian orphaned woman who grew up isolated and lonely in an orphanage. A chance to learn about herbal medicines from the famed Mr. Chen (Ling Dong Fu) takes her away from this sheltered life, and into a paradise, a beautiful island garden of Eden. Here she meets strict, temperemental Mr. Chen,who reigns on the island and his daughter with a temper and sense of entitlement to match. This devoted daughter is Chen An (Xiao Ran Li), who (quite literally), waits on him hand and foot, from clipping his toenails to washing them, to providing him his meals, his groceries and so on. Like Mi Li, she has lived an isolated, lonely, motherless life. The only life she has known is that of living with her father and his plants.
This is in shot in Vietnam, even though it was supposed to be set in China, and Vietnam’s beauty is showcased in its full glory. There are sweeping panoramic shots of beautiful, lush rice fields, mountains, the river and the ever-present gardens. Every shot, every scene, is shot in slow, languid strokes, making you stop and enjoy each scene. The film has a lovely, dream-like, illusory feel towards it, that reels you in and hypnotizes you. You can actually almost feel the mist the rises from the river, the rain that falls on the gardens, the steam that lifts up slowly from An’s body as she kneads pine resin or lies naked on a bed of herbs. This is a very sensual, very French film, and you can see this most of all when An and Li are together – those subtle longing glances, that palpable sexual tension, the fascinating chemistry they have with each other - ultimately what makes this story compelling. This is even made more so by the fact that while shooting the film, neither actors could actually understand each other, as Jampanoi (who is half-French, half-Chinese) does not speak Chinese, and Xiao Ran Li does not speak French. I love how their love story slowly develops, even with little dialogue (which is usually such a part of western mainstream rom-com cinema,gay or otherwise).
I am kind of surprised and not-so surprised that a Chinese-born, France-based man, Sijiie Dai, directed this film. The slow direction and lush cinematography is very Chinese, the melodrama is a bit Chinese soap opera, but more French (and male) in its romanticization of love (especially love between women) as is its off-hand depiction of nudity 
. Only a man would be able to shoot a woman, fully-clothed, doing something as mundane as kneading pine resin, as steam rises beneath her, and still manage to make it really sensual and erotic.
For truly what this film is is a brilliant re-imagining of the Garden of Eden story. The father and the daughter live in a paradise where the father lives out his fantasy of being king, living with a young woman who waits on him hand and foot. Li’s entrance into their paradise and into their lives, the exotic outsider beauty (who may also be a symbol of Western influence or threat to Eastern culture, which seems to raise the un-PC question-is homosexuality an external, Western influence?), upsets the balance of this paradise. Li and An’s discovery of their sexuality, their acknowledgment of that discovery and of their love for each other, also help them assert themselves to An’s tyrannical father. This is shown deliberately in the film: where before An buys groceries for her father and cares for his plants, she starts to forget and the father finds himself doing the grocery buying himself. There comes a time when he starts having meals by himself, abandoning his place at the head of the table, his symbol of power, and the couple clearly has won a battle. Li is thus now considered the evil descended on the garden, which might be akin to awakened female sexuality being considered evil as well. Li and An must now decide to leave the garden and in time, when the father finds out, they do. When Li and An are found out, and they are shot for their homosexuality, this is actually akin to society’s response to female sexuality in general: it cannot handle it, so it must shoot it down, re-subjugate it, for society’s sake. Love, especially homosexual love, is subversive, and must be stopped. However, Li and An’s complicity in the father’s death, seems to imply the way forward in female sexuality (a fine line between assertion and aggression).
The movie opens on Victorian London in the 1800s (the London of Charles Dickens times), and begins with Susan “Sue” Trinder (Sally Hawkins). Sue has grown up an orphan and has been raised in the squalid, slums of London, in Lan Street, looked after by the crime ring leader, Mrs. Sucksby (Imelda Staunton). Sue is an illiterate, streetwise, fingersmith, a kind of female version of Dicken’s Artful Dodger to Mrs. Sucksby’s Fagin. Life is hard, but Sue is comfortable and unambitious.
Everything is supposed to go well – but Sue does not count on the unexpected: she actually likes the young woman, and as Maud seems charmed by her as well, they strike a friendship with each other. Sue becomes not only a maid, but companion and confidante. From nightmares, to toothaches, to learning how to dance, Sue goes through everything with her. Sue forgets that she is about to betray this girl that she has come to like, until Gentleman comes back to reap what Sue has sown. This complicates matters for her and provides an interesting tension in the story. Sue admits that she hadn’t realized until Gentleman arrived, how happy she was, and how much she hated Gentleman. As Gentleman woos Maud on the pretext of teaching her painting, Sue is wracked with guilt and doubts. As the impending marriage looms, the intensity and tension between Maud and Sue increase, culminating in a scene where Sue starts out teaching Maud how to kiss Gentleman, which ends up being a full-on love scene. It starts out funny, even amusing, but as the intimacy deepens, there is a tenderness and sweetness. There is nothing exploitative or sexy about the scene, but it is a very gentle scene and reveals much about how the two feel about each other. Interestingly, Maud responds to her as well. And thus is an already complicated situation made even more complicated, the balance of power, the relationship between the two has shifted, and makes what follows after even more unexpected. Sue already knows that she is in love with Maud. But the shame and embarrassment of failure, of being laughed at for falling in love with another girl, of going back to Lan Street empty-handed, pushes her to go through with the plan. She finds the heart to assist Gentleman and Maud in eloping.
But as with Sue, she does not count on liking Sue as well. Sue’s charm, the development of their relationship, gives her doubts about their plans. Sue’s presence in her life awakens something in Sue, and gives meaning even to the books she reads for her uncle. In the pivotal love scene, Maud narrates, “She has touched the life of me, the quick of me” (Ah! I’ve always loved how the British use words! that line always kills me) But her determination to leave Briar Court and be free of her uncle,wins over her love for Sue. And so, wracked with guilt, she betrays Sue.
And if it were a food special, I imagine the title would be something like: “How different American families from different ethnic backgrounds celebrate thanksgiving” – which pretty much sums up the movie for me. In fact, a bulk of the scenes emphasize this, and there is always dialogue that casually drops such words as “Jewish”, “African-American”, “black”, to emphasize the ethnic backgrounds (in case you miss them). And if the appearance doesn’t clue you in on what race each family is from, then the dialogue will help you along: people speaking in Spanish, or Vietnamese. If you’re really slow, then how each dish is prepared will give you an idea, and the music will guide you along as well. But of course,the best way to help you identify the families would be the stereotypes, token characters and drama that litter this movie (there is nothing like stereotypes about each member of the family to really help you muddle along this one big confusing movie). In fact, There are so many things happening, so much drama going on behind thanksgiving dinners, it’s so hard to keep up (this is not surprising, as the writer-director probably grew up on a healthy diet of East Enders and Emmerdale). Think of it as an American version of the British fave “Love Actually”, but about thanksgiving, not Christmas, minus the charm. I saw so much turkey here I almost swore off turkey for the rest of my life!
L-WORD DVD Marathon: Season 5, Episode 4
December 23, 2009 · Leave a Comment
EPISODE 4
Before the opening credit: Yet another snippet from the ill-advised “Lez Girls” production (because, really, do you really want to see the same old story on a movie when you can actually just go get your “L-Word” DVD of Season 1 and watch that instead?), this time of the auditions for who would be playing Jesse, who essentially is the barely-fictionalized Jenny. Thus we have scenes of actresses auditioning for what we are made to believe is a very coveted role (although I mostly think this is just Jenny’s version of reality).
In this episode:
Kit is taking up self-defense classes since she got naturally spooked by the robbery in the last episode (although I still think she should improve her cash-handling skills first…and why does she not have security as well?!?). That entails, of course, the whole gang going with her, meaning Tina, Bette, Jodi (but no sign of Tom anywhere), Alice, Jenny, Shane, Shane’s missing vagina (don’t look at me, I don’t write this sh*t). Where, pray tell is baby Angelica? My only answer is, I don’t know. And anyway, being the self-sufficient that she is, she probably already knew self-defense, despite dialogue to the contrary between her parents Bette and Tina.
During the class, a series of conversations ensue: Jenny finds out Natalie Portman passed on the Jesse/Jenny starring role in her “Lez Girls” movie (which is kind of funny for me, because the likelihood of the actual Natalie Portman starring in an all-lesbian sex-fest movie is about as likely as the actual Natalie Portman actually guest-starring in “The L-Word”. But namedrop Christina Ricci and it would have been a whole different ballgame) and is so unhappy about it she hits Tina a bit too harshly. Bette finds out Tina had a hot date and one-night stand with the surgically augmented heart surgeon and hits Jodi a bit too harshly. Moreover, Bette and Tina find themselves partners in a demo of a self-defense move, and you can literally feel the sexual tension oozing from their pores. What are the odds Jodi will be out of the picture anytime soon? Shane is called by the instructor for a demo and this obviously does not bode well for the trying-to-be-celibate-lothario.
Meanwhile, Alice’s lack of supervision on her website, OurChart.com encourages Max to sneak in her two-cents’ worth about FTM transsexuals. Alice eventually finds out, reprimands her, reluctantly offers her a guest column, but not without further alienating Max by telling her it’s a lesbian website, not a website for transsexuals. Alice’s unhappiness about Max’s guerilla-type tactics are soon forgotten when a couple of military investigators barge into her apartment, intent on proving that Tasha is gay simply by association with the very out Alice. Visibly ruffled by the visit, Alice tries to de-gay-ify her apartment more so as to pass for straight. This, in turn, freaks Tasha out, sending her on a rampage and a midnight visit to her uncooperative legal counsel, who, as it turns out, is not only uncooperative, but uninformed, in the dark and severely homophobic. An imlied confrontation with aforementioned legal counsel and his wife though has implied a change of heart for said legal counsel when he ends up on Alice’s doorstep talking to Tasha, who,as it happens, has spent the night with Alice. In her room. Buck nekkid. I don’t know how these things work, but if Tasha is supposed to be lying low, why is she spending the night with the gayest woman in LA?
Meanwhile, Bette has her hands full with a complaint from an art student about another art student who staged a performance art session involving a fake gun infront of Jodi’s class. Jodi is unfazed, Bette is annoyed to reprimand her and skip a possibly dirty night with her (well, only as I gleaned from Jodi’s gestures, which,in retrospect, look really dirty. Still not feelin’ the heat between these two. They have about as much heat as two ajumas talking about the weather).
Tina, on the other hand, is busy trying to keep her sanity while her dickhead boss and Jenny argue about which actor should play Jesse/Jenny, showing complete control even as Jenny, high on nicotine gum, spits her gum on the table, and while Jenny’s new assistant, Adele tries to ever so carefully insinuate herself into the proceedings (Points for Tina for looking hot as these proceedings are going on).
Shane, meanwhile, is failing miserably, at this celibacy thing. We can see this from her seeing naked women all around where there is none. Kit’s one-liners and pie don’t help either. To take her mind off sex, she invites Jenny to a new club (this two look good together as friends…together they almost seem…normal, somehow), She-Bar, owned by a couple of party-loving lesbians, Dawn Denbo (Catherine Keener) and her lover, Cindy (this is actually their introduction to anyone who cares to listen – and it never gets old, and it always makes me feel like laughing hysterically everytime I hear it).
At the She-Bar:
Bette and Jodi arrive, followed by Kit, then Tom, then Shane, Jenny, Jenny’s assistant, starlet Nikki Stevens (Kate French) the one replacing Natalie Portman (apparently) as the star of Jenny’s “Lez Girls”. Tina and her heart-surgeon date are already there, apparently already having fun. There, they meet Dawn Denbo and her lover, Cindy who, as I already mentioned, introduces herself as “Dawn Denbo and this is my lover, Cindy”.
Bette, Kit and Jodi already find the She-Bar scene old and try to leave, but Bette needs to stay behind since she promised Shane she would not leave without her. Shane, meanwhile, is busy shagging Dawn Denbo and her lover, Cindy in the VIP lounge, so I guess it’s safe to say that that celibacy thing is over. Jenny and starlet Nikki are busy trying to like each other, courtesy of Adele, who arranged the meeting between them. Meanwhile, Tina is hiding from her party-loving heart-surgeon date, realizing that She-Bar and partying is so not her scene as well (three words: Angelica Porter-Kennard. Who must already be racking up issues to discuss with her therapist once she’s old enough to afford her own). This is where Bette finds her, in one of the thinly-veiled rooms, where she confesses her aversion of bar-hopping and partying to Bette. This confession leads to an unexpected, long-awaited kiss that is very much worth it all throughout.
Notes:
1. Lez Girls – How do you pronounce it anyway? It’s spelled Lez Girls, so I assume you pronounce it with the /z/ but everyone keeps pronouncing it the French way, like Les Girls (like Les Miserables), so I’m confused. Then again, it’s not even appropriately titled. If it were, then Tina and her dickhead boss would have less of that “it’s-not-marketable!” arguments.
2. Angelica – where art thou?!?
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Tagged: Entertainment, Jennifer Beals, Laurel Holloman, lesbian TV shows, Mia Kirshner, TV shows