I’m delighted to be bringing back my regular recaps about parenting storylines in The L Word after more than a decade—this time, for The L Word: Generation Q. Here’s what happened parenting-wise in last Sunday’s episode. What did you think about it?
Spoilers ahead.
The first parenting storyline continues one from the original series, as we see Bette (Jennifer Beals) raising her daughter Angie (Jordan Hull), now a teenager. Bette and Tina have separated, though, and Bette is struggling to balance parenting with her campaign to become mayor of Los Angeles. Bette is trying to be a good parent, but Angie, at 16, has reached that age when she’s testing limits and asserting her independence like never before. (My own son is 16 now as well; I know whereof I speak.) In an early scene, Angie is making plans with a friend to skip school, which she does, driving off in the friend’s car and vaping pot with the music blasting.
We learn later that Angie is taking four AP classes along with drama club at her fancy private school. Bette insists she can handle it, but Bette’s type-A personality, not Angie’s desires, seems to be the driving factor here. I sense a clash coming.
Still, when a scandal erupts about an affair Bette had with a married woman, her first thought is that she wants to go speak with Angie before she hears about it on the news. Turns out she’s too late. Angie is upset, but she’s also still high, so neither of them has a moral leg to stand on. Bette tells her she can’t smoke pot and starts looking through Angie’s knapsack. She may be justified, but that invasion of privacy is a sure trigger for any teen. Angie, with a teen’s logic, says that the pot isn’t hers, it’s her friend Jordi’s, and in any case, it’s not illegal. Bette counters by noting that it is, since Angie is only 16. It looks like she’s won that round, until Angie brings out an argument that hits straight to the heart: “I wanna live with Mama T.”
Bette tries to recover by threatening to tell Tina of Angie’s behavior; Angie says she’ll tell Tina of Bette’s behavior. “I’m pretty sure she already heard,” Bette responds. She grounds Angie but also apologizes for behaving in a way that hurt her. How many of us have been in situations (perhaps not involving anything as dire as affairs and drugs) where our child has done something wrong but so have we (like lost our temper), and we have to apologize for our own behavior while not letting our child get away with something they shouldn’t? It’s a fine balancing act, and I enjoyed seeing Bette attempt it.
At the end of the episode, though, Bette goes into Angie’s room and gets into bed next to her while Angie is browsing her laptop. Angie gives her a look that is part eye roll and part peace offering.
A new parenting storyline emerges with Alice (Leisha Hailey), whose current girlfriend Nat (Stephanie Allyne) has two children, Olive and Eli. Eli looks about seven or eight; Olive might be ten or eleven-ish. Like Bette, Nat has also separated from her children’s other mother, Gigi (Sepideh Moafi). All heck breaks loose when Gigi shows up one day to take the kids to school even though, Nat insists, it was Alice’s turn to do so. Nat, to her credit, is trying to incorporate Alice into the kids’ lives. “I want you to feel like you’re part of this family—because you are,” she says.
Gigi, however, seems less accommodating—and that’s understandable. As the children’s other mother, she of course should have time with them, and it’s natural to resent someone else stepping into a parental role. If Nat’s right about whose turn it was, however (and that’s unclear), it seems Gigi’s pushing the boundaries of the custody agreement. The kids don’t make things any easier for the adults when they (also understandably) say they want to go with Gigi rather than Alice.
The kids’ exit does lead to one of the funniest parenting moments of the episode, when Alice and Nat try to have sex in the few minutes they have alone together. They lean back onto the couch, and SQUAWK! goes one of the kids’ toys under the cushions.
Inconvenient kids’ toys come up again when Alice says to Bette and Shane about her foray into parenting: “You know, I’m still stepping on those Legos, and those things are fucking deadly.” Bette, ever practical, replies, “You should switch to Lincoln Logs. They’re way less hazardous.” I’m not quite sure I agree—they have fewer edges, but could send one’s feet rolling out from under—though I love the image of these classy women discussing children’s toys over brunch. Parenting humbles us all.
Alice is reminded of this when she and Nat are in bed, engaged in something frisky, and Eli comes in with a book, demanding a story. They oblige as Alice tries to keep herself covered with the sheet. I’m guessing I’m not the only one who’s been in a similar situation.
As I’ve mentioned, new showrunner and co-executive producer Marja-Lewis Ryan just had a baby with her wife earlier this year, and original L Word showrunner (and LW:GQ co-executive producer) Ilene Chaiken is a mom as well. Stephanie Allynne, who plays Nat, is a queer mom in real life, too. While LW:GQ will never be a show about LGBTQ parents and children in the same way as Freeform’s The Fosters, it is a show about the meeting of two generations—that of Bette, Alice, and Shane, and that of the younger folks like Finley, Micah, Dani, and Sophie. It’s natural that some of the older generation have kids, and and it’s good to know the show’s team includes folks with parenting experience who will bring their sensibilities to bear as needed. While I might wish for at least one family on the show that wasn’t dealing with parental separation, of such things are television dramas made—and such situations may resonate for many of us in real life, as well. It’s not unreasonable that some of the older characters on the show have ended relationships with their children’s other parents—and it’s actually refreshing to see queer parenting storylines that don’t revolve around wacky antics in search of sperm, which was a trope about a decade ago.
What more will the future hold for the parents and children on the show? Your guess is as good as mine. In the “this season on The L Word: Generation Q” trailer at the end of the episode, though, we hear Sophie tell Dani she wants to get married and have “like, nine kids with you.” This being The L Word, I wouldn’t place a lot of money on the marriage, much less the kids, but we can hope for the best.
Parenting may never be the show’s raison d’etre as it was on The Fosters, but that doesn’t mean the show won’t still offer insight into this whole adventure of queer parenting. Several of the original L Word characters have grown into it; Gen Q is thinking about it. In this first episode, when Alice was catching up with Bette and Shane over brunch, Shane asks Alice how she’s doing, and Alice replies, “I’m parenting, Shane. It’s a whole thing.” It is indeed.
