The season finale of The L Word: Generation Q included a game-changer for Shane and Quiara; some lovely moments between Bette and Angie, and wisdom from a guest of Alice.
Spoilers ahead.
Like a Virgin
The episode opens on election night at Bette’s campaign party. Angie, Bette’s 16-year-old daughter, is looking totally bored. When Alice sits next to her, though, Angie senses an opportunity to educate herself, and asks, “When did you lose your virginity?”
Alice, new to parenting and hesitant about saying the wrong thing to someone else’s kid, tries deception. “I haven’t yet,” she tells Angie.
Angie doesn’t believe it for an instant. “I know you’re lying,” she replies.
Alice owns up and tries again. “I was, like, 37,” she says.
“You know what? I’ll just ask Shane,” Angie concludes.
Love and Loss
Shane, however, is running to the hospital where the pregnant Quiara is having some bleeding. Shane disputes the hospital’s triage process and gets angry at the receptionist, even though Quiara has told her the wait will probably be only 10 minutes. All Shane knows is that her ex-wife is bleeding.
Quiara miscarries. Later, she tells Shane that she still wants to have a baby and will try again as soon as she’s ready.
Shane seems less than thrilled, though, and Quiara calls her on it. “I f—ing knew it,” she says. “You were relieved. I lost a baby, and you were relieved.”
Shane denies that and insists she was just relieved that Quiara was okay. They argue. “You knew I didn’t want this, but you showed up pregnant anyway,” Shane says.
Quiara wonders, understandably, why Shane agreed to go forward into parenting with her.
“Because I love you. And I agreed to do this so I could be with you,” Shane replies. She tells Quiara she still wants to be with her. When Quiara asks if she wants to try again for a baby, however, Shane hesitates. “I’m saying that I want to be realistic and to and to plan,” she manages.
“You’re never gonna change, Shane,” Quiara accuses. “No one is ever going to love you because you’re incapable of loving anyone but your f–ing self.”
Quiara gives Shane the wedding ring that she’s kept despite their divorce. Looks like their split might be final after all.
The Wit and Wisdom of Angie Porter-Kennard
Despite a rally towards the end, Bette has lost the election. Her first thought upon hearing the news is, “I need to go talk to everybody. I got to go find Angie.” Yes, even Alpha Bette still keeps her daughter foremost in her mind at this pivotal career moment.
While her thought may have been to comfort her daughter, it turns out that it’s Angie who does the comforting. At home, later, Bette is lying on the couch, despondent. Angie tells her it’s okay to be sad. It’s a sweet thought. I know that my son, as he’s gotten older, has sometimes reminded me of something I’d told him years earlier but needed to hear again myself. Angie’s comment feels like the same kind of thing.
Angie then takes Bette on a hike up into the hills where they’d spread some of Kit’s ashes. Bette hasn’t been there since then, but Angie says she comes up there sometimes with Jordi, “whenever I’m sad about Aunt Kit or Mama T.”
“Are you sad about her getting married?” Bette asks.
Angie is. “I guess a tiny part of me always hoped that you two would get back together,” she says. I love, though, that the writers don’t just show her sadness about this, but also let her exhibit strength. She observes about Bette, “You never let yourself be sad…. Mom left and then Aunt Kit died, and … You just kept going.”
Bette explains, “I think that I felt that if I if I truly let myself grieve, then that would mean saying a final goodbye, and I wasn’t ready to do that. I guess I just try to outrun my feelings.” It’s a great parent-child moment, marking the point at which a child is old enough to offer advice and insight back to a parent, rather than just the other way around.
Bette asks Angie to join in a practice she learned when she went on a silent retreat—presumably at the end of it: screaming. They scream into the wilderness.
Farther on in their hike, Bette tries to be parental again. “Are you and Jordi having sex?” she asks bluntly.
“Mom. We literally just started dating,” Angie says, full of embarrassment. “I just asked Alice one question. It does not mean that I’m doing anything.”
Bette is smart, though, and offers some advice anyway. “I’m not gonna tell you that you’re too young or you’re or you’re not ready or anything like that … because that would be pointless.” She’s got a point there. “I will say that sex is supposed to feel good,” she adds.
“Oh my God, Mom,” Angie says, the embarrassment coming off of her in waves.
“Yeah, for both of you. And if you’re scared or you’re feeling pressured, it’s not gonna feel good.”
“Can this be over now?” Angie pleads.
“I mean, it’s the preamble, but, yeah, sure,” Bette agrees. Stay tuned for Awkward Sex Talks with Your Kid, Part II, in Season 2.
As they continue their walk, though, they encounter Maya, one of the reporters who’d covered the campaign, now out walking her dog. She asks Bette to dinner, “off the clock.”
Now it’s Angie’s turn to embarrass Bette. “Well, she’s pretty,” Angie says, as Maya walks away.
“Stop it,” Bette retorts. Methinks she doth protest too much.
“This is exciting!” Angie presses. “You just found the love of your life.” Bette objects, and Angie continues to tease, “I see sparks in the air.”
I just love this whole hiking scene between Angie and Bette. Perhaps it’s that my son is Angie’s age, but to me, it really epitomizes a particular moment of teen development. Sometimes we still have to speak as the more mature, experienced authority to our teens—but there are moments when they surprise us with their maturity, wisdom, and ability to interact with us as (almost) peers. We get a glimpse of what they’ll be like as grown human beings and the type of relationship we’ll have with them for the rest of our lives, and it’s beautiful.
Bad Queers
Over on Alice’s talk show, she’s hosting real-life writer and professor Roxane Gay, guest starring as herself. Alice asks her, “Can you be a bad queer?” referencing Gay’s book Bad Feminist, which calls for broadening what “feminist” means to include those who may not adhere to some perfect ideal.
Gay answers, “Historically, in the queer community, we’ve tried to resist heteronormative ideas. And, so, these days, to be a bad queer is probably to want a wife and two kids and a picket fence.”
“I think I might be a bad queer,” Alice replies.
Her and Bette and Tina and Nat and Gigi. Add Sophie, too, who at the start of the season said she wanted to have “like, nine kids” with Dani. As for Shane, this tension between queerness and parenthood perhaps encapsulates her current struggle.
I’ll have more to say on this in a season wrap-up shortly. For the moment, though, here’s to all of us who are finding our own ways to be both parents and queer.