A must watch – we finally get a glimpse of how Ruby Rose’s new character Stella – complete with an Aussie accent – will make waves in the new season of Orange is the Black. And yes it involves Alex (Laura Prepon) and Piper (Taylor Schilling).
Watch, watch, watch…
As the third season arrives, it’s worth reflecting upon how far Orange Is The New Black has come.
The show is based on a best-selling memoir by Piper Kerman of the same name, and many of the broad plot details remain the same. We first meet Piper (Taylor Schilling), when she is in her early thirties. She is a white, upper middle-class, liberal arts graduate who runs her own successful business selling luxury toiletries, and has just got engaged to her boyfriend.
But there is a cloud on the horizon. A drug-trafficking offence from ten years ago has finally caught up with her, and she has been served a custodial sentence.
Quickly, a wonderfully rich and original world of character at Lichfield Penitentiary comes to the fore. There is a host of forceful, dynamic and complex women; damaged, devious, morally ambiguous, neither clear victims or villains. A large proportion of them, black, Latina, gay, are characterisations heretofore largely under-represented on mainstream television.
The show has wider social resonances too. It’s depictions of the endemic corruption inside the institution, and the many dehumanising privations, which compromise the women’s safety and security.
And the characters complex back-stories speak volumes too. Each character study is fleshed out with details about the particular familial, economic, and emotional conditions which have ultimately led to incarceration – and so we see lives unfolding and buckling under a litany of bad starts, desperate measures and questionable choices.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLyUlTu4KbI
Queen Latifah has spoken up for marriage equality and gay rights in a recent interview with Uptown Magazine, saying there’s always been gay people in the black community, but stopped short putting herself in that category.
The actress and former talk show host, whose sexuality has long been subject to speculation, has never commented on her orientation.
People’s ideas in general are antiquated when it comes to who you love. We haven’t moved as quickly as we probably should. And the reality is that there’s always been gay people in the black community, so it’s not foreign to us. And not just as a black community but just a society as a whole.
Who you choose to marry is really up to you and it’s not something you should be judged on. I don’t find being gay or lesbian to be a character flaw. Couples should be protected under the laws of this country period. It actually angers me. It’s not unusual so let’s be adults and let’s move forward.”
Latifah is starring in HBO’s Bessie, a biopic of blues icon Bessie Smith, which delves into the singer’s bisexuality during her heyday in the 1920’s.
I’m not really sure how people will feel about [Bessie’s bisexuality]. It’s not like it’s a secret with her story. She was just free.”
Latifah also touches on life after the cancelation of her talk show, The Queen Latifah Show, in late November of last year, saying “obviously it was disappointing,” but that she looks forward to continuing work with her production company, Flavor Unit Entertainment.
A.K.A. Jessica Jones is a new Netflix miniseries collaboration with Marvel.
The show is based on Brian Michael Bendis’ critically-acclaimed comic series Alias, which introduced the character (including her previously-unseen super heroic backstory) in 2001.
Jessica Jones was a superhero called Jewel, with great strength and the ability to fly – but after a horrifying incident she hung up her cape for good. Now she works as a private investigator in New York, but struggles to leave the past behind as she becomes involved with super heroic cases.
Much like Agents of SHIELD or Agent Carter, A.K.A. Jessica Jones will take place in the same world as the Marvel movies – so if yet another super villain levels half of New York City in Avengers 3, expect Jessica to be dealing with the aftermath.
Continuing their trend for getting reasonably big sci-fi names, A.K.A Jessica Jones has cast Carrie-Anne Moss (best known as Trinity from The Matrix) in the mysterious role of “Harper”, an authoritative figure and potential ally to Jessica.
However, there could be a little more to Harper we need to know. Pictures are out of Carrie-Anne’s character sharing a passionate kiss with an attractive blonde co-star while shooting for the new show.
We don’t know too much more about the character other than she is a ‘no-nonsense woman who could prove a powerful ally to Jessica… if Jessica doesn’t completely alienate her first.’
Hmmmmm…
Carrie-Anne joins Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones, Mike Colter as Luke Cage, and David Tennant as Purple Man in the upcoming Marvel series.
The hotly anticipated series comes as part of a list of scheduled releases by Netflix, based on Marvel heroes The Defenders: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist.
Daredevil will premiere on Netflix on April 1, with A.K.A. Jessica Jones expected to follow later on in 2015.
The Entourage and GoodFellas star, Debi Mazar, said she feels “a responsibility to the gay community” in playing a lesbian character on TVLand’s Younger.
The series, follows 40-year old Liza (Sutton Foster), a suddenly single mother who tries to get back into the working world, only to find it’s nearly impossible to start at the bottom at her age. When a chance encounter with Josh (Nico Tortorella), a young tattoo artist, convinces her she looks younger than she is, Liza tries to pass herself off as 26 – with the help of a makeover, courtesy of her best friend Maggie (Mazar). Armed with new confidence, she lands a job as an assistant to the temperamental Diana (Miriam Shor) and teams up with her new co-worker and 20-something Kelsey (Hilary Duff) to make it in the career of her dreams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzKn_m3ARPo
On the show, which debuts on TVLand March 31, Mazar character is a woman who just “happens to like chicks instead of guys.”
Talking to HuffPost Live this week, Mazar said
“I don’t like to play caricatures of people. I’m a New Yorker, so I’ve been surrounded by the life — the gay life — my whole life, from the community.”
We’re less than three months away from the third season of Orange Is the New Black, and while the show’s creators are keep tight lipped on exactly what’s in store for the ladies of Litchfield this year, we can think of a few things that we’d like to see.
Why haven’t we gotten Big Boo’s (Lea DeLaria) backstory yet? DeLaria has said she already knows what Boo’s origin story is (in fact, she was given her character’s backstory as soon as she signed on for the role), so why are the fans still being kept in the dark?
We could also stand to see a little more from characters like Flaca (Marisol Gonzales) and Maritza (Diane Guerrero). Their friendly kiss last year was one of the sweetest scenes of the season, yet we barely know them. Can we get a little more information beyond the fact that Flaca loves The Smiths and Maritza has a kid?
We were disappointed to see Alex on the sidelines in most of season 2, and there was absolutely no opportunity for Alex and Piper to hook-up, so here’s looking at you, season 3 – especially now Alex is back in prison.
Last season, we did see plenty of flashbacks though, and was luck to a scene where Alex went down on Piper, then just as Piper is about to “take the plunge,” Alex’s crazy semi-girlfriend storms in and starts beating Piper up. Not our ideal end to this scene, so this season OINTB owes us big.
Also with the introduction of Ruby Rose’s new character Stella now in the mix – sparks should fly.
The conflict between Vee (Lorraine Toussaint) and Red (Kate Mulgrew) clogged up Season 2 like a deadweight.
However, now that Vee out of the picture, the can move on nicely. While Vee’s death will surely have huge effects on Taystee (Danielle Brooks) and Crazy Eyes (Uzo Aduba), we hope their mourning is quick so we finally can drop her character for good.
It’s never a good sign when a show’s entire sophomore season revolves around a new character who wasn’t even referenced in the first, so we’d like to see the focus return to some of our old favorites.
In Season 1, Red butted heads with Pornstache over her smuggling, tortured Piper (Taylor Schilling), hunted the Chicken and lost all her allies. In Season 2, she became Piper’s roommate, joined the Golden Girls, began smuggling again, was lied to about her family business, and had a seemingly never-ending feud with Vee.
That is a lot for one character on this show – especially when there are so many inmates who barely get any screen time. Here’s hoping Red takes a backseat this season, because as much as we love Kate Mulgrew, it’s time to give the other girls a shot.
Sophia (Laverne Cox) was one of OITNB’s original breakout characters, and yet she was almost entirely absent throughout Season 2. Season 1’s “Lesbian Request Denied” proved that Cox can handle drama as well as comedy, so let her show off her skills! Let’s check back in with Sophia’s family, especially her son Michael, but also see her get more involved in the current-day plots.
Sophia has mentioned a rivalry with Danita, the other Litchfield hairdresser – so show us more.
In season two we got to see Poussey (Samira Wiley) and her German Girlfriend flashback. It was the scene that gave us a real personal (in several ways) look into Poussey’s life that we hadn’t had before. We saw a tender, loving, expressive side of this passionate character in an entirely new light, framed by a surprisingly honest sex scene that really crushed our souls when we remembered this show isn’t exactly about characters whose lives turned out splendidly. We’ve loved getting to know Poussey, and in next season we demand to see more, especially after the beating she took last season.
Enough with the Daya (Dascha Polanco) pregnancy storyline. Two seasons in, and no baby – this has to be the longest human gestational period ever. Here’s hoping Season 3 covers several months rather than a couple of weeks, and Bennett (Matt McGorry) and Daya finally get to see their baby.
And while we’re at it, the truth also needs to come out about the baby’s real parentage. Though we bet the appearance of Pornstache’s mother (Mary Steenburgen) might help speed that along.
The Star Wars universe is a pretty diverse place, slug-like Hutts, to the furry Ewoks and the irritating Gungans.
However, next month it will make franchise’s history, by adding its first official queer character, thanks to the author Paul S Kemp, who is including a lesbian character in his forthcoming Star Wars novel, Lords of the Sith.
Not much is known about the new lady, named Moff Mors, except that she will be a mysterious Imperial character.
A description of the character by Big Shiny Robot says:
“Moff Mors is an Imperial who has made some very serious mistakes but she is an incredibly capable leader and spends much of the book working hard to prevent absolute failure. She also happens to be a lesbian.”
Shelly Shapiro, editor of the Star Wars books, said:
“This is certainly the first character in canon. But there was a gay Mandalorian couple, so it’s not brand new. It’s not something I really think about, it just makes sense.
There’s a lot of diversity… there should be diversity in ‘Star Wars’. You have all these different species and it would be silly to not also recognize that there’s a lot of diversity in humans. If there’s any message at all, it’s simply that ‘Star Wars’ is as diverse (or more so because they have alien species) as humanity is in real life and we don’t want to pretend it’s not. It just felt perfectly natural.”
Harry Scoble, the Star Wars editor at Century in the UK, said that
“The Star Wars universe has always been incredibly diverse – just look at the number of sentient species that rub shoulders there. Alongside that should be an implicit assumption that sexuality there is diverse as well.
While Moff Mors is the first character in the canon to be explicitly mentioned as being LGBT, this isn’t meant to be a big statement, since there must definitely be others. In the end Star Wars should be as inclusive a world as we aspire to make our own.”
Lords of the Sith, published on 23 April, also sees Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader setting out to personally end a rebellion on the planet Ryloth.
Legend of Korra co-creator Bryan Konietzko has released some very romantic Korrasami artwork. The art will be sold as an exclusive print at an exhibition, and Konietzko plans to donate the amount to an LGBTQ suicide prevention hotline.
The show surprised fans after concluding the popular animation series with a romantic lesbian linkup between the show protagonist Korra and her long time friend Asami.
Shippers have been in full support of the Korrasami relationship since it was rumored at the beginning of The Legend of Korra season four. Although many thought it would never be showcased as the show had such a young demographic.
Well we were all extremely surprised during the shows final episode with the implication that Korra and Asami were entering into a deeper relationship and even more surprised when the creators actually confirmed our suspicions.
Later show creator Mike Dimartino came forward and confirmed the Korrasami lesbian relationship.
“Our intention with the last scene was to make it as clear as possible that yes, Korra and Asami have romantic feelings for each other,” Dimartino said on his official blog page.
The moment where they enter the spirit portal symbolises their evolution from being friends to being a couple.”
Mike Dimartino
Out UK actress Michelle Hardwick, who plays Vanessa Woodfield in the TV soap Emmerdale, has revealed she had angry messages from fans after her character started dating a man following a lesbian storyline.
In the soap, she shared a short lesbian affair with friend and colleague Rhona Goskirk (Zoe Henry), before dating current 17-year-old toyboy Kirin Kotecha (Adam Fielding).
Talking to Digital Spy, Hardwick said
“There are certain people on Twitter that were so upset that Vanessa is not a lesbian after the Rhona story. I don’t respond to everyone but what I say is that when Vanessa came into the village, she wasn’t a lesbian.
She was a free spirit who was quite man mad, eyeing up Andy Sugden at the bar. Vanessa fell in love with her best friend who she was helping through a difficult time, and it became more of an obsession. Some people would prefer her to be with a woman, but hey ho – let’s mix it up a bit, that’s what I say!
Michelle Hardwick
Hardwick came out in 2013 and proposed to her girlfriend in real life on New Year’s Eve, 2013.
Welcome to another How to Get Away With Murder recap! HTGAWM also known as the show where sometimes people aren’t getting away with murder, they’re being heavily considered as the suspects instead.
This week on the show, Annalise puts her game face on and the police continue to bust her for a murder that she didn’t actually commit.
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly so read on to find out what went down this week.
If you’ve been watching the series from the start, then you’ll know that Annalise’s number one rule of lawyering is not to ask your client whether or not they did it or not. Well you can expect that one to be in full force this episode when Annalise is investigated for the murder of Sam (her husband, whose cremated, mashed up remains were discovered last episode) and she takes on the case of a mob boss embroiled in a drug trafficking scandal.
“I have never lost you a case [in 15 years]” is the line she pulls up when mob boss Leo tries to drop her when he grows concerned about Annalise’s (rumoured) murderous antics. She’s good at convincing him and his nephew (the one on trial) though and so she rallies the troops (her students, y’know, the ones who actually killed Sam) to get him off the hook.
Step one, go through every bit of info that explains why the container (the one with the drugs in) was chosen for a weigh in as part of a ‘random’ check. Funnily enough, only one container was chosen that day although the officials usually check 15! There’s a turn up for the books when Frank and Asher realise that the officers who showed up to weigh the container actually showed up before the container was weighed…sort of like they’d been tipped off? Yup, and as Laurel discovers that a man named Pedro was working the yard that day but quit his job two days later to look after a sick relative, we know that there was a mole.
Fast forward to Annalise in court and the federal agent responsible for the mole starts threatening her, tells her not to pursue the criminal informant angle or she’ll find herself in more hot water with regards to the murder of her husband. But this is Annalise, she can’t back down! She probably doesn’t even know how to! After discovering that Pedro had actually been partying it up in New Jersey when he was supposedly looking after his relative, Annalise decides to press the issue anyway. She pulls him onto the stand, interrogating him until he confesses that not only was he told to weigh the container but that he was promised a green card (an important citizenship document) for doing so as well. But whoever told him to such a thing? Prosecutor Hobbs! Also known as the federal agent who threatened Annalise earlier.
Like Annalise herself said, she’s never lost a case for the mob and she wasn’t about to start now.
As for those murder charges against her. Things are looking bad (to say the least) when Annalise sends Bonnie to have a search warrant thrown out but she’s literally laughed out of court and so the search will take place anyway. The police come; they search every inch of the house and find the scales off of the trophy (the thing used to kill Sam) but don’t deem it suspicious. Unfortunately, the nervous look on Annalise’s face and the way she’s staring at a section of the floor make the police start swabbing the floor for DNA traces. They don’t find a single thing – Annalise scrubbed it to within an inch of its life after Sam’s blood spilled all over it.
Things still aren’t done yet though, as the police are examining the fibres found amongst Sam’s frazzled remains. Featured in the case file of Sam’s murder is the fact that there were carpet fibres mixed up with his corpse and the fact that he was killed with a blunt object; most likely a metal one. Bonnie puts two and two together and makes four, noting that not only was the carpet in Annalise’s hallway missing when she showed up the day after Sam disappeared but that she knew it was odd when the police found the scale from the trophy too. She gives Annalise an ultimatum and says that the police will soon realise Sam’s body was dumped in the woods and that she won’t get away with covering for her students. “Don’t let them ruin you” she advises.
But what can she do? Annalise promised her students that she’d protect them.
Soon enough, the police determine that Sam’s body had been burnt in a woods somewhere, so of course they investigate the conveniently located woods near the college campus. And what should turn up? A ring! Could it be the ring that Michaela lost on the night they disposed of Sam’s body? After a panicky few moments from viewers and students alike, the police dust the ring for prints and find one from Nate (Annalise’s lover) as she had Frank plant the print and the ring the previous night. Nate gets arrested for murder and while Sam’s sister is still angry at Annalise, saying that he’s the reason her brother is dead, the fact that it’s being written off as a crime of passion gets her (and her students) off the hook.
The episode closes with Annalise crying in her bed, on the phone to her mum asking her for help.
There was little gay this week as Connor was too busy being a nervous wreck to go and she his sort-of boyfriend Oliver. But! There was new info in the ‘bisexual Bonnie Winterbottom’ stakes!
Apparently, no one told Bonnie that Sam’s body had been found and she had to find out for herself the following morning. She’s in tears in the kitchen but we already know that she disliked Sam and wasn’t interested in him like that (he kissed her but she was not about that life). The reason she keeps sobbing is because she thinks that Annalise doesn’t trust her any more. So that, along with the fact that Bonnie desperately wants to protect Annalise from the police (even if it means she has to dump her students in it) makes it seems as though Bonnie’s concern stems from more than just platonic, friendly feelings.
Also this tweet from Oscar nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe proves that I’m not the only one on the good ship #BisexualBonnie so there’s that!
Other than some ugly morals? There was nothing ugly about How to Get Away With Murder this week, it was a perfect episode.
Welcome to another Gotham recap! Gotham also known as the show where bad guys are easier to find than queer women with substantial storylines!
This week on the show, Scarecrow gets his name and one mad man eats adrenal glands for breakfast.
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly so read on to find out what went down this week.
As you’ll remember from last week, a deranged fellow named Gerald Crane joined a phobia support group and was going around scaring members shitless and harvesting their adrenal glands. There was a stand off between him and detectives Harvey and Jim but he soon evaded capture by…locking a door. Genius, I know.
Continuing on his adrenal gland jacking spree, after he invades the home of a teacher and takes his one too, we finally get to find out what he’s been doing with them. The killer has been…injecting them? Well, specifically he’s been turning them into his own fear inducing tonic. Three parts adrenal gland, two parts some sort of yellow substance that looks like wee and one part dramatic shots of him mixing it all together and voila, he has something that will see him confront his worst fear He injects it and runs into the corridor where he’s greeted by a woman (his ex-wife) engulfed in flames.
The killer, as it turns out, happens to be a biology teacher at a local school. According to the headmistress, he has a theory that fear is the reason for all of the world’s problems and that with his super smarts, and some super murderous antics, he can cure it! And not just his own fear either; he can cure his son Jonathan too but as we skip to a scene where his son is being injected, we find that mini-Crane isn’t so thrilled about it.
Researching the older Crane’s motivation for the crimes days late (surely that would be one of the first things you’d look into?) Gotham’s dud detectives fire up the precinct’s creaky computers to discover that Crane’s wife died in a house fire, not in a car crash like he told everyone (including his employer). They head out to the old house but before they arrive there’s already trouble brewing as Jonathan tries to flee from his dad who is convinced on injecting him with the pee-coloured stuff.
When the useless twosome show up, the Cranes take their serum and hightail it into the field in the dead of night. Their brilliant plan? To lay in full view on some bales of hay where they’ll shoot up hopefully before Jim and Harvey see them. By some standards, it works. Jonathan gets a massive quadruple dose of the serum while his dad gets shot to Swiss cheese, not frightened by the bullets (though he really probably should be). He lays flailing in pain amongst the hay bales, facing up at a scarecrow as it courses through his body. Later, a doctor informs Jim that Jonathan is in a constant state of fear and that the thing that he fears most (that scarecrow!) will continue to haunt his waking hours for the rest of his life. Yeah, definitely expect this guy to turn up as a villain in the future.
Elsewhere in the city, Falcone and Maroni are shaking hands on a deal that will see Maroni leave Penguin (the double crossing informant) alone. Sadly, instead of killing the most annoying character on the show, Maroni will take solace in having a judge on his side. Much to Penguin’s delight of course as his club (freshly taken from former owner Fish Mooney) has received a makeover and a new name and will become an integral part of Falcone’s operations.
Meanwhile, Fish herself is in the middle of another power struggle (she just can’t seem to lay low, can she?) as after being kidnapped last week she’s thrown into a dungeon with a bunch of other nasty types. The head guy (who’s the head guy because he’s the only one with a blade, naturally) has a bit of a soft spot for Fish though and when she seduces him and sits on his lap…slice!…he gets his throat coat courtesy of the baddest bitch in there. We also see people fighting for scraps of food and some woman wailing about having her eyes gouged out so hopefully that one will be explained next week.
And finally, in the dumbest decision anyone made on the show this week (and that’s really saying something), butler and guardian Alfred sends young charge Bruce off into the woods to take part on the annual trek that he would do with his (now deceased) father. Bruce throws a tantrum, knocks over some rocks and then falls down a hill. It’s a good bit of comedy, actually.
He busts his ankle in the process and after sitting in a ditch for hours he finally tries to climb out of it where we see Alfred warming his hands on a bonfire, where he’d apparently been sitting for a while. Yes, not only did he send the billionaire heir out by himself after his parents were killed just a few months ago (and their killer still has not been located) he also let him struggle as tried to rescue him. That’s some sort of twisted character building, let me tell ya…
For several weeks on the trot now (I think the official count is four, but it’s all been a queer-less blur) lesbian badass Detective Renee Montoya hasn’t been featured and her love interest Barbara was only featured once for about 20 two episodes ago.
This week was no different and by my estimation, the current odds of one (or both!) of them being killed off by the end of the season are now at about 10/1. It’s not clear as to whether or not the show is playing the long game with these two but for the past few episodes, they’ve clearly been dead weights.
Jim and new love interest Leslie have some unnecessary plot about workplace romances. Blergh, boring, I’m falling asleep etc. It was a total filler plot this week and I didn’t see the point.
Props to the writers though, because in terms of ‘ugliness’, this episode did alright.
When it comes to LGBT representation, it’s a well known fact that video games do it badly. Very few games feature LGBT characters as side characters, let alone as playable ones.
Notable game series include The Sims, Dragon Age and Mass Effect which have all allowed players to have same-sex romances since they were created. But these games take breaks – and they are just three video game franchises (all published by the same company, I might add) – and so there’s very little to choose from.
More: Gay and Lesbian Characters in Video Games
But there may be at least one game to tide you over if The Sims 4 and Dragon Age: Inquisition aren’t up your street – a game called White Robe Love Addiction. Straight out of Japan, White Robe Love Addiction is actually a visual novel (these are essentially interactive stories) and so it features very little gameplay, but if you’re looking for femslash romance in the video game space, it’s one of few examples.
Set to be released on (Sony’s handheld games console) PS Vita in April, the game focuses on a group of women who are looking to become nurses. In typical trophy fashion, the women are often clad in short skirts, garters and other clothing decisions clearly made for ‘maximum titillation’. (When I said it offered queer representation, I didn’t mean it offered the best representation, but alas.)
If you can overlook the God awful character design, there might be a story here for you to latch onto. The lead is named Asuka and we play as her during time at nursing school (around three years) during which we meet Itsuki, Sakuya, and Nao. Itsuki and Sakuya are the lead queer couple, even being described as “the most perfect couple in the whole school.”
Itsuki has green hair, is the school’s lothario and her skills include “sexual harassment” which is more than a little concerning. Sakuya meanwhile, is devoted to her studies despite the fact that she was pressured into enrolling in nursing school. As for Nao, very little is known about her but it’s been confirmed that her and Asuka become fast friends.
Unfortunately, as Japanese gaming press has been very reluctant to cover the queer angle of the game, we can’t confirm whether Asuka herself will get to to have a romance with a classmate or if players will only be able to witness the relationship between Itsuki and Sakuya. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that White Robe Love Addiction will receive translation into English so you may want to brush on your Japanese before importing it.
White Robe Love Addiction will be released on April 30th, 2015 for PS Vita.
Decisions, decisions, decisions but who should be your TV valentine? Which of these queer characters is best suited to be your Valentine’s Day sweetheart?
Welcome to another Gotham recap! Gotham, also known as the show where the police are about as useful as a chocolate teapot. In a sauna.
This week on the show Penguin finally gets what’s coming to him and I’m ready to send out a search and rescue team for missing queer ladies, Barbara and Renee.
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly so read on to find out what went down this week.
The Plot
What’s your biggest fear? For Jim Gordon it’s probably ‘viewers seeing through my good veneer and realising that I’m as useless as all the other chumps in this place’ but for countless other Gotham residents.
Their fears prevent them from going about their day to day, which is why they have a phobia support group. Some support group that turns out to be though when it turns out that someone is killing off its members, terrorising them with their worst fears.
First to go six feet under is a man named Adam who’s been hoisted up on a ledge and then dropped off of it just to submit him to his worst fear (heights) before he died. To find his killer, Bullock hatches an ingenious plan: flirt inappropriately with Adam’s sponsor Scottie and then accompany her to a meeting. Totally professional. They’ll have plenty to talk about during their not-a-date too as the second victim – a man who’s terrified of pigs – gets accosted with one of the oinkers on the street and ends up being led towards a thug, clunked on the head and kidnapped for more fear inducing treatment.
He survives though, when Jim and Harvey investigate a lead and head to an old chair manufacturers which is the same place the man is being held captive, surrounded by, you guessed it; more pigs. They shoot his captor dead but now must find the captor’s partner – flash forward a few hours to the support group meeting where Harvey is *meant* to be scoping out suspects.
This being Harvey and this being Gotham, a place that seems to breed bad detectives like rabbits, Harvey sits twiddling his thumbs when Scottie gets up to follow a man who runs out of the room after revealing that he has a fear of failure. Harvey literally asks the rest of the group if it seems like they’ve been gone a long time and although he was there to look for murderers specifically, he didn’t think to go and check on her or go to the meeting with backup so that he could prevent this from happening. Incredible. Alas, Scottie looks to be victim number three as we see her being bundled into the back of a van.
Scottie must be something special though, because her kidnapping presents us with the first bit of good detective work in weeks. Harvey rings her mum to find out that the killer has probably taken her to a local pool, a place Scottie nearly drowned when she was a little’un and the place her fear first reared its ugly head. He and Jim show up just in the nick of time (gotta love those TV coincidences!) and rescue her, but Jim’s efforts to chase down the suspect prove futile and he gets away. With some help of Jim’s new girlfriend Dr. Thompkins, we discover that the killer also stole the adrenal gland from his first victim. For what? God knows! But we’ll probably get an answer next week as the show attempts to lure us in with another two-part crime special.
Speaking of crimes, the season-arching case of just who killed Bruce Wayne’s parents hits a snag (or does the best thing possible) when Bruce relieves Jim of his investigatory duties as his search has only turned up one eyewitness and she turned out to be a liar.
Meanwhile, Penguin’s old boss and current fugitive gangster Fish Mooney rings up his new boss Maroni to let him in on a little secret, i.e that Penguin is a lying two-faced rat who has been gathering info for Maroni’s rival, Falcone. While Mooney is travelling, revelling in her latest smart deed, Maroni is hauling Penguin’s suited ass off to a remote cabin. They’ll eat oatmeal! And bond! And see a man about a thing!
Only there is no man and after growing suspicious about Maroni’s intentions, Penguin nabs the gun from his bag and pulls it on his boss after a game of truth or dare reveals that Maroni does indeed know about his double crossing. The gun is full of blanks though and after firing them all off, Maroni punches him out and takes him to an old junkyard, where he’ll be squished into Penguin-y paste. Well, that’s the plan anyway but Penguin rings up the junkyard’s owner and tells him that Falcone will come after him and so the owner sets him free and voila, the Penguin is once again out in the wild.
The Gay
Once again, there were no queer characters on the show. For those who are keeping track, that’s two episodes on the trot. Renee hasn’t been seen in three weeks and Barbara only showed up a fortnight ago for a pointless, 30 second scene.
I wouldn’t be surprised if one (or both) of them gets added to the ‘dead queer character’ list by the end of the season.
The Ugly
What were the ugly parts of Gotham this week? Well there was the shoddy policing and the unnecessary inclusion of Jim’s love interest. There was also the continued insistence by the show that Edward Nygma is a creepy genius and isn’t actually, just creepy as he put a bunch of severed arms in the medical examiner’s locker in order to get him fired.
I’m starting to think that Gotham is just destined to be rough around the edges. Expect another Gotham recap next week.
Welcome to another How To Get Away With Murder (HTGAWM) recap! HTGAWM also known as the show where the lead characters are trying to get away with murder…and are doing a pretty rubbish job at it.
This week on the show Annalise breaks the cardinal rule of being a good lawyer; dobbing your own client in.
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly, so read on to find out what went down this week.
As you’ll recall, last week saw the police scrabbling around for clues in the disappearance of Sam Keating. Believed to be on the run, no one has any idea where he is and he’s wanted for the murder of Lila, his mistress. Only, Sam’s been dead for a good few weeks, so good luck with that one.
Furiously trying to hold on to some sort of normalcy are the people who killed him and those who helped clear it up: Annalise (Sam’s wife) and her students Connor, Wes, Michaela and Laurel who are back at school following the Winter break. Laurel set every viewers’ heart swooning by yelling at her uninterested family in Spanish, Wes has been suffering nightmares, Michaela bought a new engagement ring (her old one got lost amongst the bags of Sam’s corpse) and had arguments with fiancée Aiden about the wedding (and over his possible flirting with another man), Connor was metaphorically beating male love interests away with a stick and Annalise just drank herself silly and ate pancakes and chocolate for an entire week.
Snap back to reality and Annalise finds herself dealing with a morally murky new case. A woman who claimed to have been arrested for a DUI actually confesses that she desperately needs Annalise’s help as her husband has been holding two women captive in their basement. No one wants to take the case since the woman technically helped her husband in all of this, but Annalise is adamant.
The first plan of action is to put forward a plea deal; the woman wants to be spared from jail-time for aiding her husband and will take three years of probation instead. With a plea deal (possibly) on the table, Annalise’s right hand aid Bonnie records the woman’s explanation to the police that one of the women being held captive is heavily pregnant and that her last was stillborn and she doesn’t want that to happen again. The police raid her home and arrest her husband; the women are safe, but what of that plea deal? The judge refuses to accept the plea deal without hearing from the victim’s themselves.
So, what do the victims have to say? It’s revealed that the woman used to sneak them food and take care of the captive women whenever she could, it portrays her as sweet, caring and definitely not in support of her husband’s ways, well, until one victim says “She gave us milk, she said it would help put us to sleep so we wouldn’t have to know what [her husband] was doing”. Yup, the victim just revealed that the woman was helping her husband rape the women by plying them with milk laced with drugs, so that they wouldn’t have to be awake for it. Annalise and co. have no chance in defending this one.
Bless her determination though as her students get to work on finding a way to get out of this mess. Wes thinks he’s on to something when playback of her recorded confession features “Lynn deserves to keep this one” as if to say that Lynn’s first baby wasn’t stillborn but the baby is being looked after by someone else. Could it be that the woman is hiding a child? Yes, yes it could, but she refuses to give up her location until Annalise confirms that plea deal. But this is Annalise, one of the state’s greatest lawyers – she heads out and comes back after a conversation with the DA – tells the woman “congratulations” and reiterates the favourable terms of the deal.
They wait. And wait. And wait some more, until the police return with the little girl. She’s safe but she’s malnourished and the woman is glad, says she knows she won’t want to see her, probably not until she’s 18. “You won’t be out of jail by then”, replies Annalise. Wait, what? Annalise “Sneaky” Keating strikes again – she lied about the plea deal and the woman fell for it. She’s going to jail after all, much to the approval of all of Annalise’s students and just about everybody watching the show. Case closed, good luck in prison, you’ll need it.
Meanwhile, the search for Sam has its peaks and dips. On the bright side, Frank (Annalise’s other aid) stole Connor’s car and destroyed it to get rid of the evidence of Sam’s body that was left all over it when they moved the body. But Sam’s sister is snooping around – she wants answers and it takes a home-cooked meal and an emotional plea from Annalise to convince her that Annalise has no idea where Sam is and that he’s not the person they thought they knew.
It’s all for nothing though. Wes’ girlfriend Rebecca alerts him to a real life nightmare that’s worse than the ones that have been ruining his sleep; the police have found Sam’s body.
As mentioned, Connor just can’t keep the boys off of him and even his sister tries to set him up with a guy when he heads home for the holiday. But he’s lovesick, he’s enamoured by computer hacking pro Oliver and is doing everything to win him back after Connor’s confession of drug addiction (which he lied about to explain why he was so shook up the night of Sam’s murder) tore them apart.
Connor buys him a Christmas gift, has a movie night with him and does everything to prove that he is boyfriend material. But does Oliver buy into it? He does; he explains just how hard he’s fallen for him and they kiss.
The two of them are really quite sweet together (even if most people don’t see Connor as a particularly good guy) so it’ll be nice to see if they manage to shack up and have a real relationship with the cops at Connor’s heels.
There were a few scenes in this week’s episode where the hookup between Bonnie and Asher (one of Annalise’s students) became a problem. Although he eventually promised to stop being a jerk towards her, Asher had been treating Bonnie miserably since she shrugged him off after they slept together the night Sam was killed.
At one point he says that he could file a sexual harassment suit against her which is the thing that lands the scenes in the ‘Ugly’ part of this recap. Not only would that be a really awful thing to lie about but the show has skirted over the fact that when Asher and Bonnie slept together, Bonnie was drunk. It’s murky, but what they did was potentially rape, so it’d be interesting to see if the show does ever address this point.
Expect another HTGAWM recap next week.
Welcome to another Gotham recap! Gotham also known as the show where the good guys ain’t so good and the bad guys are bad to the bone.
This week in the show, Fish Mooney just about swims her way out of troubled water and Gotham continues to be a show full of missing queer ladies.
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly so read on to find out what went down on the show this week.
What’s going down is a whole lot of corruption! Some poor blighter (or no good criminal, possibly both depending on how you see these things) has been murdered and stuck on a hook for the whole factory to see. Narcotics detective Flass shows up in his shiny Italian suit and as he’s being led away by partner Bullock, leading man Jim does a bit of detective work and finds a bunch of weird blue square baggies in the victim’s shoe. Their jobs are made easier by a janitor who saw the whole thing go down, including the killer, so they haul him into the station. They pull him into the station and while he, the lead witness in a murder case, is left completely alone, someone comes in and murders him.
Jim rightly thinks that a cop is the culprit and so questions them all to get a name – Delaware. Officer Delaware flees to his car where Jim arrests him and pops open the trunk – more blue squares? Odd. When Jim brings the squares to Chief Essen, she and Flass explain that they are part of a narcotics investigation that’s being going on for some time. It all seems a bit suss so when Harvey tells him that Flass is as corrupt as a cheese sandwich in the summer and is involved in the drugs trade himself, they have to go to one of his warehouses to do some extra digging.
Delaware and the rest of Flass’ cronies are at the warehouse when they get there, citing search warrants and other loopholes. Essen also says that they can’t do anything since it would cost them all their jobs and so Jim is forced to turn to old pal Penguin for help. Penguin’s help comes up good as his henchman gets Delaware to confess that Flass killed the goon to send a message (the janitor was just collateral) and even provides the murder weapon to put Flass in the slammer.
When Jim presents the murder weapon there’s resistance and a whole lot of yelling from Flass about knowing guys in high places and all that other baloney. It’s fruitless though as the rest of the force (including Essen) back Jim up. It’s a tiny dent in the larger, also corrupt scheme of things but Jim’s corruption clean up train is definitely gaining some speed.
Going less great is the situation between Bruce ‘Future Batman’ Wayne and Selina ‘Future Catwoman’ Kyle. Ignoring the fact that Bruce has a bit of a thing for Selina, the two were genuinely friends which is why it hurt Bruce so bad when he and butler Alfred had to go into hiding for their own safety. Now that they’ve come back though, Bruce is determined to find Selina and so he roams the streets looking for his lost (budding) love.
When she finally turns up – having received a message from homeless pal Ivy that Bruce was on the lookout – things quickly go pear-shaped. He hands over a souvenir snow globe and offers her a place to stay, saying that his fancy digs are “better” than her current ones and she’s offended, tells him to chill and then explains that she lied and never saw who killed his parents (the reason they became friends in the first place). It stings and later when Alfred has to pick up the pieces of both his heart and of the snow globe.
Meanwhile, things aren’t looking too hot for Fish Mooney either. After her plan to topple mob boss Falcone went south last week, her and henchman Butch are now in the grasps of some nefarious fellas. Butch escapes and finds out where Mooney is and he gets there just in the nick of time – but it’s not before she’s been suffocated within an inch of her life and is about to be dismembered.
After saving the day, the two of them head to Mooney’s old club to get it back from Penguin, Mooney’s former assistant and up and comer in the criminal underworld. She has him licking her shoe at one point but then twisted hitman Zsasz and his cronies show up and save the day. Mooney and Butch hightail it out of there and we later see her being sent off to safety after a kiss from Harvey.
Once again, there was no queer content in this week’s episode of Gotham. Last week, Renee was suspiciously absent and love interest Barbara was only present for a second when she showed up at her parent’s house so anything would have been a step up.
It’s probably too soon to say that this is unfair treatment of the characters or even to suggest that they’re only featured to fulfil queer tropes but it’s certainly making me wonder.
Getting more of the limelight than Renee or Barbara is the relationship between Edward Nygma and Kristen Kringle. Last week I pointed out how awful their dynamic is as Edward has been harassing Kristen since the show began last year. The show appears to be passing all of his oddness as ‘romantic’ as we’ve now levelled up from ‘live bullet in a cupcake’ (last week’s gift) to ‘actually quite sweet note’.
I had an issue with this plot anyway but to see it passed off as normal and to see Kristen be anything but appalled at Edward’s behaviour is really sad to see.
Welcome to another How To Get Away With Murder recap! How To Get Away With Murder also known as the show where the title is about both the lawyers and the defendants. Gotta love those murky waters.
This week in the show we see Annalise and her flock of law students continue to hoodwink the authorities but they’re skating on such thin ice that they put the new iPhone to shame.
As always, this recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly, so read on to find out what went down in the show this week.
As you’ll recall, the previous episode of HTGAWM was balls to the wall insane. We finally witnessed Sam’s murder as a scuffle with Annalise’s students (Wes, Laurel, Connor and Michaela) and Rebecca (Wes’ girlfriend, Annalise’s client and one of the main suspects in the murder of Sam’s lover Lila) saw Annalise’s husband being flipped over a balcony, knocked unconscious and then clunked in the head with a trophy by Wes when he woke up and tried to kill Rebecca. The students then moved his body, burnt him and threw away the remains but not before Annalise came home, saw him lying in a pool of blood in the living room and was joined by Wes soon after as he showed up to retrieve the murder weapon. To be fair, Sam probably deserved it (Cell Block Tango and all that) but admitting that the students did it and that Annalise knew it had happened would put them all in jail.
Cut to this week’s episode where Annalise is lying through her teeth to the police, telling them that Sam has probably fled since she left the house after threatening to have a DNA test done, proving that he is the father of his mistress’ unborn foetus which would suggest that he is also the person who killed her. In order to save their skin, she’ll have to lie to her students too and have Wes convince them all that she knows nothing about Sam being killed.
Things are already off to a bad start though as while Wes explains to the police that he and his studious pals were at a study group (and then at the school bonfire) the night Sam disappeared, Annalise has called Rebecca into her office to say sorry for previously trying to cover up Sam’s affair (his mistress was one of Rebecca’s friends). Consider the seed of doubt planted and considerably watered in Rebecca’s mind then as she later asks Wes if Annalise knows, telling him that the apology was weird and that’s it even weirder that he’s not freaking out about it. Uh-oh.
While they wait for the rest of the police interviews take place, the plan of action is to get the charges dropped against Rebecca and drop Sam right in it. Granted, the police will have a hard time arresting a dead man but this is important nonetheless. Laurel and Frank (one of Annalise’s aides) stick Sam’s hair in a bag to get a DNA test for Lila’s foetus and after a computer search (done by Connor’s ex-boyfriend) pulls up no travel evidence Bonnie (another aid) and Asher (another student and also the person Bonnie slept with the night Sam was killed) have to go and get Sam’s laptop out of evidence so that they can use his phone’s data to prove he travelled. Complicated? Yes and it’s fruitless too when they discover that the prosecutor is keeping it from them as she aims to get Rebecca thrown in prison.
More problems and more lies when the judge won’t let Annalise look at the records of the abortion clinic that Lila went to prior to her death and then she’s forced to lie to her lover, Nate, when he asks her point blank if she knows something about Sam’s disappearance. And then, we have lies from Laurel too who tells the police that Sam used to look at her in a sexual manner and then we see her pumping Frank for questions just to find out what Annalise knows. These students sure are good at planting the seed of suspicion.
It’s a dangerous game and Connor wants out, he wants to work with Michaela to turn Wes and Rebecca in for Sam’s murder. They are technically in the right! Well, forgetting the fact that they saw their friends kill a guy and then lied to the police about it, but it’s not like a technicality matters, right? While those two are considering throwing everybody under the bus, some solid wins get secured for the team – Michaela figures out that security footage of the clinic Lila went to could be used as evidence while Frank delivers news that Lila’s foetus was indeed Sam’s.
Could it have all been for nothing though? After looking relieved when Frank tells her, Annalise is forced to explain to him what happened. Meanwhile, during Asher’s police interview he tells them that he saw Connor’s car outside of the Keating’s house when he showed up to retrieve the trophy that Michaela had stolen from him earlier in the evening. Though, during Bonnie’s interview she tells the police that Sam knew Lila was pregnant and that he made a pass at her to stop her from telling that fact to Annalise. Whether the police believe her story however, is yet to be seen.
Cut to a bit of good news and the footage from the clinic not only shows that Lila was there, but that Sam had shown up too and was clearly quite unhappy with her. In the courtroom, the woman on the desk in the clinic heaps more dirt on Sam’s name when she explains that not only did he seem angry at Lila, but that he was trying to force her to get an abortion that she most definitely did not want. The whole things allows Annalise to get the court to appoint a forensic expert to check out Sam’s laptop too. Oh, and Michaela explains away Connor’s parking spot by saying that they got out at the Keating’s and walked to the bonfire from there!
Flash forward to the next day in court and it’s all kicking off. Connor is still pushing the ‘let’s sell them out!’ thing to Michaela, saying that they’ll need Laurel to do it and Frank has just dumped Annalise right in it by yelling at Laurel (who’s playing coy) for keeping Sam’s murder a secret. With the court bustling and Michaela and Connor stepping in to convince her to join their plan, Laurel doesn’t have a chance to tell Wes about anything. Court is in session and the verdict says…that Sam was at the murder location at the time of the murder, alright! The verdict is also that Rebecca is now free, hall-flippin-lujah.
As for the rest of that drama, it seems that Laurel is going ahead with Connor and Michaela’s plan. Well, sort of. They pull up to the police station only to be greeted by Wes and Annalise, as tipped off by Laurel. Annalise convinces them to drop it because she knows everything, even if she won’t tell them how she knows it. They agree and she says they’ll help them get away with it too.
So yay! Our many musketeers can live a happy life (until the next episode airs, anyway). Their class has the final assignment for the year (to figure out how four people can get away with murder in unusual circumstances), Rebecca and Wes celebrate Christmas around an adorable little tree, Laurel reconnects with her sort of on/off boyfriend and Annalise goes home.
Wait, did I say that they’ll live a happy life until the next episode? Just kidding! Sam’s sister shows up right at the police station (after Connor has finished his interview) and tells them that everything his wife says is a lie. Connor lets Annalise know, but this one is going to get ugly.
There was limited gay in this episode, sadly. Connor and his ex boyfriend had a stern word or three, as Connor’s lie of being a drug addict was brought up, so it seems unlikely that they’ll be getting back together anytime soon.
Also, in terms of subtext we had Bonnie offering Annalise a shoulder to cry on if she needs it. That hardly means that Bonnie is queer for certain but I’ll be holding out for #BisexualBonnieWinterbottom until it happens.
There’s nothing to be said about HTGAWM on the ugly front. As usual, this was a good episode and if you aren’t watching the show already then you really should fix that.
Welcome to another Gotham recap! Gotham also known as the show where moral codes, ethics and good policing come to die.
This week on the show, last week’s electro-bad guy makes a return, Barbara shows up for no reason and everyone is terrible at their job!
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly so read on to find out what went down in this episode of Gotham.
Last week, Jim showed up at Arkham Asylum ready for guard duty, miserable about his demotion but determined to keep the patients safe. He did a remarkably bad job as not only half a dozen people get murdered or have their brains electro-shocked into bewilderment, the perpetrators also got away, fleeing under the cover of darkness. Well it seems as though the escape was engineered so that Dr. Gruber (the electro-shocking mad man) could clear up some unfinished business from a job gone wrong back in the day.
First on his to do list? Pick up a multi-ton generator from a hardware store. The double crossing fool in charge of the place has been keeping it safe for Gruber for years but he doesn’t get much thanks as the doctor soon fries his marbles and leaves the man felt tip penning gibberish on the walls. Apparently the massive power hub is light enough to me driven around in a van because that’s exactly how they transport it out of there and up the road to mob boss Maroni’s place.
Jim, who made a deal with the Police Commissioner to find Gruber in a day or risk being stuck on guard duty forever, is already wise to it. Having just received a visit from Dr. Leslie Thompkins (who also featured in last week’s episode) Jim finds out that some voodoo priestess at the prison made a doll of Maroni for Gruber prior to his escape. Not that this knowledge encourages Jim to I don’t know, ring Maroni and warn him of the dangers? By the time Jim shows up in his rubber galoshes (that he’s donned specially for the electro-villain occasion) an electric grenade has already gone off and zapped Maroni and co.’s noggins.
After they’ve been patched up, Jim strikes up a conversation with Maroni (and Penguin who sits up from his stretcher to dither on about a meeting with other mob boss Falcone) about Gruber, confirming the two’s dodgy dealings. Taking them down to the station for police protection is the best plan of action says Jim, they’ll be like bait! Taking all of the effort out of policing, everyone will hang around like sitting ducks, waiting for Gruber and his henchmen to make an assault on the building.
Well, who should show up not long after? It’s Gruber! Having attached some leads from his portable generator to the metal of the precinct, the deranged doctor has managed to zap everything and everyone within the Gotham PD building. Except for The People’s Hero™, Jim Gordon, who was immune thanks to those rubber galoshes (that no one else though to wear despite the fact that they were literally waiting for an electro-shocking mad man to attack them). He has a fight with Gruber’s henchman, eventually knocking him out cold, before Gruber starts charging up his suit to electrocute Gordon too.
Jim uses a cup of water to short circuit Gruber’s suit and voila, Gotham’s most useless detective actually saves the day, winning his job back in the process.
About that spot of bother that Falcone needed help with – Mooney has ‘kidnapped’ Falcone’s girlfriend Liza and is threatening to beat her up unless Falcone leaves Gotham with Liza and hands over all of his power to Mooney instead. Could it really be that easy? Could Mooney really get all of the power she wanted, just like that? Of course not; we’re still a dozen episodes away from the season finale.
Falcone is one step ahead of Mooney. He shows up to the meeting place after a conversation with Penguin, Penguin having revealed that Mooney planted Liza months ago! So Falcone asks all of the right questions in an effort to find out if Liza really was in cahoots with Mooney all this time. Liza’s lies are about as obvious as an elephant hiding in a bathtub and Falcone strangles the life out of her with his own bare hands. Grim.
Victor Zsasz was on protection duty for Falcone too so every single one of Mooney’s guards is dead (bar right hand man, Butch) and she’s helpless. Consider Mooney’s days numbered (or, we’ll see how she tries to wriggles herself out of this one in next week’s episode).
No gay this week as our resident lesbian badass Detective Renee Montoya was nowhere to be seen. Apparently she only gets wheeled out when Gotham’s producers need to kill some time!
Speaking of killing time, Renee’s love interest and Jim Gordon’s ex, Barbara, got just one scene this week. She showed up at her parents and asked to stay with them for a few days. She also drank some tea. Sound pointless? It was. This week’s episode was 44 minutes long meaning that it wouldn’t have hurt them to cut this scene and yet she was featured for no reason whatsoever.
It’s ok to have pointless characters but don’t make their dead weight-edness so blatant next time, Gotham producers.
And, also in the dead weight category was an unnecessary romance scene between Jim and Doctor Thompkins. The two had ‘chemistry’ (and I use that word in the lightest of terms) last week and so with her having helped with solve the crime (and I use that phrase lightly too) those feelings bubbled up and the two started kissing.
Why did Jim have to get a new love interest mere episodes after having fallen out with Barbara? Why couldn’t Doctor Thompkins just be a super smart aid to the Gotham officer without none of this heterosexual rubbish? Both are good questions that I sadly don’t have the answers to.
Oh and speaking of awful, heterosexual plotlines, Edward, the police force’s resident boffin, decided to put a live bullet in a cupcake to win a coworker’s affections. It was weird, creepy and as it’s not the first peculiar antic he’s pulled, it’s bordering on harassment. There’s a chance that the show might address his Definitely Not Cool behaviour in a future episode but as this is Gotham, I have my doubts.
We’ll have another Gotham recap for you next week.
GLAAD have announced the nominees for its 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards, and although the year has been a challenging one for queer female visibility in film, it has been positive in other areas such as TV shows (drama, comedy and documentary) and music.
In the TV world, lesbian/bisexual characters and storylines rode strong in 2014 and into 2015, and we now see a number of main-stream shows grace our TV screens with a flurry of positive queer female role models.
This was clear acknowledged by GLAAD who ensured to nominate a number of our favourite female star and shows for awards.
“For nearly 30 years, the GLAAD Media Awards have raised the bar for inclusion in news and entertainment, transforming LGBT representation in media and moving the dial for acceptance across the globe.
It’s been a remarkable year for equality, and nowhere is that more evident than in the visibility LGBT people have gained across media.“
Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD President & CEO
Although there is no major queer female-led film nominated, GLAAD did nominate academy award nominee The Imitation Game, Love is Strange,The Skeleton Twins, Golden Globe nominee Pride, and Melissa McCarthy’s comedy Tammy for the best wide-release film award.
In the Outstanding Artist Category, British singer, Sam Smith, is up against folk singer Mary Gauthier, rapper Angel Haze, punk rock band Against Me! and singer/songwriter Mary Lambert.
This year ABC tops the broadcast networks with six nominations, while HBO takes the most noms for a cable network with five nominations. To reflect the increasing diversity of LGBT storylines, GLAAD expanded the comedy and drama series categories from five to 10 nominees this year, to include a great number of shows.
ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder, Grey’s Anatomy and The Fosters are all contenders for best drama, while Netflix’s Orange is the New Black picked up a second nomination for best comedy in a row.
In the documentary category The Case Against 8, about the landmark Supreme Case that overturned California’s ban on same sex marriage, was nominated along with True Trans with Laura Jan Grace, and To Russia With Love, about the Sochi Olympic Games and the Russian LGBT community. Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, which follows the lives of seven transgender youths and Showtime’s L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin, about gay women living in the southern United States also got nods for outstanding documentary.
In total, GLAAD announced 144 nominees in 31 English and Spanish language categories for the awards that will be presented at ceremonies in Los Angeles on March 21 and New York on May 9.
See the complete list of nominees below.
OUTSTANDING FILM – WIDE RELEASE
The Imitation Game (The Weinstein Company)
Love is Strange (Sony Pictures Classics)
Pride (CBS Films)
The Skeleton Twins (Roadside Attractions)
Tammy (Warner Bros. Pictures)
OUTSTANDING FILM – LIMITED RELEASE
Dear White People (Lionsgate)
Life Partners (Magnolia Pictures)
Lilting (Strand Releasing)
The Way He Looks (Strand Releasing)
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (Film Movement)
OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES
Degrassi (TeenNick)
The Fosters (ABC Family)
Game of Thrones (HBO)
Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
How to Get Away with Murder (ABC)
Last Tango in Halifax (PBS)
Masters of Sex (Showtime)
Orphan Black (BBC America)
Pretty Little Liars (ABC Family)
Shameless (Showtime)
OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (FOX)
Faking It (MTV)
Glee (FOX)
Looking (HBO)
Modern Family (ABC)
Orange Is the New Black (Netflix)
Please Like Me (Pivot)
Sirens (USA Network)
Transparent (Amazon Instant Video)
Vicious (PBS)
OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL EPISODE
(in a series without a regular LGBT character)
“Deep Breath” Doctor Who (BBC America)
“Down a Tree” Good Luck Charlie (Disney Channel)
“Identity Crisis” Drop Dead Diva (Lifetime)
“Let’s Have a Baby” Playing House (USA Network)
“No Lack of Void” Elementary (CBS)
OUTSTANDING TV MOVIE OR MINI-SERIES
The Normal Heart (HBO)
OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY
The Case Against 8 (HBO)
L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin (Showtime)
Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word (Logo / MTV)
To Russia with Love (Epix)
True Trans with Laura Jane Grace (AOL Originals)
OUTSTANDING REALITY PROGRAM
Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce (Fuse)
B.O.R.N. to Style (FYI)
Make or Break: The Linda Perry Project (VH1)
R&B Divas: Atlanta (TV One)
Survivor: San Juan del Sur (CBS)
OUTSTANDING DAILY DRAMA
Days of Our Lives (NBC)
General Hospital (ABC)
OUTSTANDING MUSIC ARTIST
Against Me!, Transgender Dysphoria Blues (Xtra Mile Recordings)
Angel Haze, Dirty Gold (Island Records/Republic Records)
Mary Gauthier, Trouble & Love (In the Black Records)
Mary Lambert, Heart on My Sleeve (Capitol Records)
Sam Smith, In the Lonely Hour (Capitol Records)
OUTSTANDING COMIC BOOK
Hawkeye, written by Matt Fraction (Marvel Comics)
Lumberjanes, written by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis (BOOM! Studios)
Memetic, written by James Tynion IV (BOOM! Studios)
Rat Queens, written by Kurtis J. Wiebe (Image Comics)
Saga, written by Brian K. Vaughan (Image Comics)
OUTSTANDING TALK SHOW EPISODE
“Issues Facing the Transgender Community” Katie (syndicated)
“Laverne Cox discusses ‘The T Word'” The View (ABC)
“Michael Sam” Oprah Prime (OWN)
“Pepe Julian Onziema” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
“Robin Roberts” The Ellen DeGeneres Show (syndicated)
OUTSTANDING TV JOURNALISM – NEWSMAGAZINE
“Coming Out” Nick News With Linda Ellerbee (Nickelodeon)
“Gay and Muslim in America” America Tonight (Al Jazeera America)
“Gay Rodeo” This is Life with Lisa Ling (CNN)
“Infield & Out: Baseball for All” Morning Joe (MSNBC)
“Transgender Society” [series] Ronan Farrow Daily (MSNBC)
OUTSTANDING TV JOURNALISM SEGMENT
“Change is Coming to the South” Melissa Harris-Perry (MSNBC)
“Fired for Being Gay?” MSNBC Live (MSNBC)
“License to Discriminate?” Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN)
“A Model with a Mission” Alicia Menendez Tonight (Fusion)
“Transgender Tipping Point?” This Week (ABC)
OUTSTANDING NEWSPAPER ARTICLE
“A Christian Family, a Gay Son and a Wichita Father’s Change of Heart” by Roy Wenzl (The Wichita Eagle)
“For Transgender Service Members, Honesty Can End Career” by Ernesto Londoño (The Washington Post)
“An Identity to Call Their Own” [series] by Michael A. Fuoco & Mackenzie Carpenter (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
“Longtime Utah LGBT Advocates Recount Brutal History” by Erin Alberty (Salt Lake City Tribune)
“When They Stopped Waiting” by Shaun McKinnon (The Arizona Republic)
OUTSTANDING MAGAZINE ARTICLE
“Do Ask, Do Tell” by S.L. Price (Sports Illustrated)
“The Forsaken” by Alex Morris (Rolling Stone)
“Inside the Iron Closet: What It’s Like to Be Gay in Putin’s Russia” by Jeff Sharlet (GQ)
“Sex Without Fear” by Tim Murphy (New York)
“The Transgender Tipping Point” by Katy Steinmetz (Time)
OUTSTANDING MAGAZINE OVERALL COVERAGE
Essence
Glamour
Out
Sports Illustrated
Time
OUTSTANDING DIGITAL JOURNALISM ARTICLE
“31 Days of PrEP” [series] (Advocate.com)
“Black Parents, Gay Sons and Redefining Masculinity” by Edward Wyckoff Williams (TheRoot.com)
“Conner Mertens came out to his college football team. Now he comes out publicly.” by Cyd Zeigler (Outsports.com)
“A Nun’s Secret Ministry Brings Hope to the Transgender Community” by Nathan Schneider (America.Aljazeera.com)
“A Year Later, ‘Nothing’ Has Changed Since Transgender Woman Islan Nettles was Killed” by Tony Merevick (Buzzfeed.com)
OUTSTANDING DIGITAL JOURNALISM – MULTIMEDIA
“Left Behind: LGBT Homeless Youth Struggle to Survive on the Streets” by Miranda Leitsinger (NBCNews.com)
“Why did the U.S. Lock Up These Women with Men?” by Cristina Costantini, Jorge Rivas, Kristofer Ríos (Fusion.net)
“With Technology I Didn’t Have to Sell My Body” by Kerri Pang (MSNBC.com)
“Young and Gay: Jamaica’s Gully Queens” by Adri Murguia, Christo Geoghegan (News.Vice.com)
“Young and Gay in Putin’s Russia” by Milene Larsson (News.Vice.com)
OUTSTANDING BLOG
The Art of Transliness (theartoftransliness.com)
Autostraddle (autostraddle.com)
Box Turtle Bulletin (boxturtlebulletin.com)
Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters (holybulliesandheadlessmonsters.blogspot.com)
My Fabulous Disease (marksking.com)
SPECIAL RECOGNITION
Dragon Age: Inquisition (BioWare/Electronic Arts)
OUTSTANDING DAYTIME PROGRAM EPISODE
“Cementerio homófobo” Caso Cerrado (Telemundo)
“Maestro despedido por [ser] gay” Caso Cerrado (Telemundo)
“Un mundo de juegos” La Rosa de Guadalupe (Univision)
OUTSTANDING TELEVISION INTERVIEW
“Abigail Pereira participante transgénero de Yo Soy El Artista” Suelta La Sopa Extra (Telemundo)
“En cuerpo ajeno” Un Nuevo Día (Telemundo)
“Felicia en Ventaneando: Platica sobre su transformación” Ventaneando (Azteca)
“Identidad Sin Fronteras: Inmigrantes transgénero buscan nueva vida en EEUU” Despierta América (Univision)
“Intolerancia familiar” Realidades en Contexto (CNN en Español)
OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY
“Identidad sin fronteras” Panorámica (Univision/Pivot)
La Travesía del Atleta Gay (CNN en Español)
OUTSTANDING TV JOURNALISM – NEWSMAGAZINE
“Felipe Najera abre su corazón” Primer Impacto (Univision)
“Michael Sam confiesa su homosexualidad” Sin Límites (CNN Latino)
“Orlando Cruz habla de su vida” Al Rojo Vivo (Telemundo)
“Vínculos y rupturas” Aquí y Ahora (Univision)
OUTSTANDING TV JOURNALISM SEGMENT
“Corte Suprema de Justicia en EE.UU decline estudiar recursos sobre bodas del mismo sexo” Informativo NTN (NTN24)
“Posibles sanciones” Noticiero Telemundo (Telemundo)
“La historia de una [mujer] transexual” Café CNN (CNN en Español)
“Obama apoya la comunidad transgénera” Noticias MundoFOX (MundoFOX)
“Ya no hay obstáculos” Noticiero Univision (Univision)
OUTSTANDING LOCAL TV JOURNALISM
“En centros de detención” Noticias Telemundo Arizona (KTAZ-Telemundo 39 [Phoenix])
“Cobertura de Spirit Day” [serie] Noticias 34 (KMEX-Univision 34 [Los Angeles])
“Justicia para Zoraida Reyes” Noticiero Telemundo (KVEA-Telemundo 52 [Los Angeles]
“Nombran a la primer mujer gay al Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico” Ultima Hora (Univision [Puerto Rico])
“Tacones de charro” Noticias 34 (KMEX-Univision 34 [Los Angeles])
OUTSTANDING NEWSPAPER ARTICLE
“Caravana gay en contra la marginalidad social” by Panky Corcino (El Diario New York)
“¿Es la TV latina homofóbica? La respuesta te sorprenderá.” by Marta Sarabia (La Opinión)
“Gay, indocumentado y sin cuidados médicos” by Patricia A González-Portillo (La Opinión)
“Latino gay elegido alcalde de Long Beach responde a ataques homofóbicos” by Olivia Tallet (La Voz de Houston)
“Mamá, soy homosexual dijo Ricardo; su familia no entendió y lo corrió de su casa” by Selene Rivera (Hoy Los Angeles)
OUTSTANDING DIGITAL JOURNALISM ARTICLE
“Identidades invisibles” [serie] by Marcos Billy Guzmán (ElNuevoDia.com)
“Identidad sin fronteras, un documental sobre los inmigrantes transgénero” (PeopleenEspañol.com)
“Una misión: repartir amor” by Istra Pacheco (PrimeraHora.com)
“¿Qué tan difícil es salir del clóset en Colombia?” (BBCMundo.com)
“Ser gay en China: La bandera del arco iris ondea libremente” (CNNEspanol.CNN.com)
OUTSTANDING DIGITAL JOURNALISM – MULTIMEDIA
“Derechos de los homosexuales entran a la campaña electoral en Brasil” by Shasta Darlington (CNNEspanol.CNN.com)
“Hispanos LGBT quieren su propia reforma” by Álvaro Ortiz (LaVozTX.com)
“Maité Oronoz jura como juez asociada del Tribunal Supremo” by Rebecca Bamuchi (PrimeraHora.com)
“¿Que es ENDA?” by Cary Tabares (Univision.com)
“Venezuela: Madre lesbiana pide al Parlamento reconocer derechos de su hijo” (EFE.com)
SPECIAL RECOGNITION
“Era Diferente” Los Tigres del Norte
Welcome to the first Gotham recap of the new year! Gotham, also known as the show where the moral code is as existent as Pegasus, the Loch Ness Monster and the jolly green giant.
This week on the show, lead character Jim Gordon starts work at Arkham Asylum but as expect, things do not go to plan.
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly.
When we open on Gotham, old Jimboy is overseeing a musical. It’s all costumes and cheers until the dramatic angel sings, causing another inmate to punch the high notes out of his performance. The world’s worst guard (he even calls the inmates lunatics), Jim gets a new love interest for his troubles; a woman named Dr. Tomkins who he meets as the victim is being treated. There’s some casual flirting and the pummelled angel wakes up and tells them to get a room *yawn*.
It’s not all peachy for the main man though after his usual patrol turns up a dead man. Well, a brain dead man at least as Tomkins determines that the inmate has been administered electro shock therapy, frying his brain and rendering him alive but unable to do anything. Jim wants to call in the GCPD, Dr. Gerry Lang says no and so we’ve now got Jim’s first case of the new year.
The first step of his investigation is finding out just who had the keys which bizarrely, instead of searching the cells Jim decides to…interrogate the mentally insane criminals. Who obviously are in the right of mind for that sort of thing. Alas, even after conversations with child-like axe murderer Helzinger and sociopathic Dr. Gruber, Jim is still stuck for answers. But Jim will need to work fast as our singing angel friend is the latest victim, being reduced to a gibbering, play-reciting mess.
Jim has now got back up though, having called up old pal Harvey Bullock to help him! And he’s a genuine help rather than a lumbering pro-corruption weight for once too, finding out from Lang that Nurse Dorothy is an inmate not a Nurse and has had them all fooled until this very moment. (Nice going, background checks). Jim figures it out about the right time and sets about putting the whole place in lockdown but not before Dorothy has sprinted off and let all of the inmates out of their cells like a maniacal pied piper. She also gets trampled; in the most ridiculous scene in television history but let’s pretend that this is super serious!
So with Dorothy dead, is the mystery over? Of course not and Jim and Dr. Tomkins still need to get the hell out of dodge. It involves some quick thinking and Jim punching an inmate right in the kisser to protect her. Aww, chivalry’s not dead!
Getting out alive (just about), Jim is all ready to celebrate with Harvey and Police Chief Essen when the coroner reveals that Dorothy had electro-shock wounds on her neck too. Wounds, he says, that she couldn’t possibly have given to herself. That means that she was merely another victim and that the real culprit is still on the loose. Not that they get there in time to stop them though as both a guard and Dr. Lang die, with a snapped neck and a total bloodbath respectively. Cut to a shot of Gruber and Helzinger hightailing it out of Arkham in a van.
Less fortunate meanwhile is Ivy, who’s shivering her juvenile tuchus off under a cardboard box. Thank goodness for thieving pal Selina ‘Catwoman’ Kyle who rescues her from the destitution and ‘borrows’ Jim and fiancée Barbara’s pad for a bit. Anything for a friend in need and all that.
We also catch up with Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot for a bit and the limping, suited goon is doing mob boss Maroni’s bidding, talking to fishermen to raise the prices and hand over more of their fish gotten gains to the mafia. Things don’t quite go to plan and he gets a right welt to the face from the police and a lock up in a cell for his efforts. And, when Maroni shows up to let him out, Penguin gets an earful from Maroni too. Better watch your back, boy.
Other mob boss Fish Mooney is planning her own moves. She’s talking big. She wants to take down mob leader Carmine Falcone and split the business up between herself and the two other honchos. There will have to be a new leader and, having come up with all the ideas Mooney puts herself forward, but Jimmy, the senior figure under Falcone, is having none of it and so he will have to be dealt with.
Her plan of action is to send Butch, her right hand man an old friend of Jimmy’s, to go and speak to him. Mooney has concerns that Butch is a turncoat though but he assures her that there’s nothing to be worried about. Does she have a point though? When Butch meets with Jimmy a day later, he offers his friend a hefty sum; a massive chunk of the business. Butch tells him he’ll ‘consider it’ and will get back to him soon. Hmm.
When they meet up again, Butch and Jimmy have a right old heart to heart. When they stole a bunch of meat when they were 14, Butch says that he took a bunch of prime steaks for himself and he’s felt bad for stiffing his friend out of those premium cuts ever since. He’s sorry, Jimmy forgives him, it’s a beautiful showcase of friendship! Until Butch pulls out a gun and puts a bullet in Jimmy’s head. Looks like Mooney has nothing to worry about after all.
As for our other favourite Gotham-ians (Gothamites? residents of Gotham, anyway) Renee and Barbara, the two are holed up in Renee’s room. Bringing in some empty prop coffee cups, Renee looks to wake Barbara up the right way! Give her some energy! Or give her something that will shake her out of a pill induced slumber as Barbara is buddied up with her intoxicated demons once more.
Despite kisses and coffee, it’s not all niceties. Renee wants Barbara to call Jim and help her get clean – she and Barbara are toxics together, she says. Renee has been sober for a year, after her initial relationship with Barbara got her into this mess in the first place, so I don’t blame her for saying that. However, it seems disjointed on the show’s part to see make relationship blow up so fast.
She does actually phone Jim though but Ivy, having taken up a spot on their sofa, answers the phone pretending to be romantically involved with Jim (?). It’s weird and Ivy even sounds like a child but Barbara falls for it and tells her to go to hell so it might not be completely done for Barbara and Renee just yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5opRJAsw2hg
Ignoring the oddly shoehorned in romance hints between Jim and Dr. Tomkins, the awkward kiss between Renee and Barbara or the fact that Penguin’s storyline existed once again for no apparent reason, the ugly in this week’s Gotham was actually what was missing.
Specifically, Bruce Wayne and his butler Alfred Pennyworth were missing and the episode wasn’t really lacking because of it. It’ll be interesting to see how their corruption busting plot coexists with Jim’s and if the plot surrounding the young Batman will put me to sleep.
Responsible for such hit television shows as Gossip Girl and 90210, The CW network isn’t usually the go to TV channel when it comes to queer TV programming. In fact, given that the channel had no regular LGBT characters in any of its shows (as of October 1st, 2014), The CW was actually a channel that LGBT folk avoided.
But that could all change with Jane The Virgin.
Based on a Venezuelan telenovela called Juana la Virgen, Jane The Virgin focuses on a woman named Jane who has chosen to save herself for marriage. But that all comes into question when she becomes pregnant via an accidental round of artificial insemination following a routine doctor’s appointment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgDz0s7xw8A
All of the drama ensues, complete with a tangled web of lies, tales, family members and love interests and it makes Jane The Virgin one of the most unique, original and outright brilliant TV shows to grace our screens. Here are three good reasons why you should watch it.
Very often, we find ourselves rolling our eyes at just how white (and usually male) the casts of our favourite television series are. Not so with Jane The Virgin as the majority of the cast are actors of colour.
Jane and the members of her family, along with her best friend and her boss’s sister are Hispanic, while Jane’s fiancée and Jane’s boss’ wife are white, the best friend of Jane’s boss is mixed race and the police partner of Jane’s fiancée is black.
We very rarely get casts this diverse and with Jane The Virgin it never feels like anybody’s a token, merely, these are the characters and it’s just nice to see some more relatable faces. None of the characters are stereotypes either making it a shining example of good representation.
Yes, for many of you the amount of queer characters is a deal-breaker as it rightly should be! No need to worry about Jane The Virgin then as the story kicks off thanks to the lesbian sister of Jane’s boss.
After she walks in on her wife mid-affair, Dr. Luisa Alver drinks and shows up to work dazed and out of it, which is why she fails to realise that she artificially inseminated the wrong woman. While the circumstances are unfortunate, with Luisa we have the plot of the show.
She also gets a love interest a few episodes in, which comes with its own strings and issues (naturally), but Luisa isn’t treated as a side character nor does her drama only focus on her sexuality. Rather, her problems are in the thick of it right with everyone else’s.
If you’re struggling to keep up with the immaculate pregnancy premise then don’t worry. As Jane The Virgin is based on a telenovela it’s meant to have these many branches of stories and lies, that’s what keeps it fun.
Rather than being campy or ridiculously as telenovelas can be, Jane The Virgin’s plots have migrated to network television incredibly well and each week, reveals that you’d usually expect shows to bookmark in a series premiere or finale pepper each episode and keep you addicted.
Watch Jane The Virgin on Mondays on The CW.
As noted across both Marvel and DC (the two heavy hitters in the comic book market), there’s a real lack of female representation. Not only do the women of their rosters fail to get as much of the spotlight as the men, they are small in numbers too.
Batwoman is one of few exceptions. A total badass and an out and proud lesbian, Batwoman (or Kate Kane as she’s known out of costume) was once kicked out of the United States army for being gay under DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell) but has continued to seek justice for the people of Gotham by taking to the streets in mask, cape and all.
Batwoman has even had love interests too though after DC refused to let Kate and her girlfriend Maggie get married, W. Haden Blackman and J.H. Williams III left the creative team. We are now feeling the full effects of their departure as the latest Batwoman comic features a controversial rape scene.
Not that any rape scene wouldn’t be controversial but this one is especially striking due to the nature in which it happens (and in the way in which the comic plays it off). In the comic, vampire supervillain Nocturna breaks into Kate’s house, uses her vampire powers to trick Kate into thinking that Noctura is Maggie and then proceeds to have sex with her.
The operative word there is ‘trick’ – Kate doesn’t consent to what happens (and even complains that she feels a little light-headed from drinking wine) and is being manipulated into taking part. That’s not a loving act between two right-minded people, it’s rape and there’s no getting around that.
Worse still, the comic presents this as something sensual rather than gross and disgusting. The reader is made to feel as though the rape is sexy and seductive and all of the other adjectives that should never be associated with terrible sexual acts.
And, on top of this, Nocturna and Kate actually start a relationship following this issue of the comic. This too is manipulative and abusive (Nocturna uses more vampire trickery to get Kate to agree with what she wants) and yet the creative team behind Batwoman is condoning it.
Prior to W. Haden Blackman and J.H. Williams III’s departure, many fans were worried that Batwoman would go downhill and evidently they were right to be concerned. It’s unclear if the comic can get off of this slippery path either. DC has a long and awful history with using rape as a plot device so if you’re expecting Batwoman and DC to make amends, I strongly advise comic fans not to hold their breath.
Welcome to another Gotham recap! Gotham also known as the show where the heroes don’t wear capes and the villains don’t wear masks since everyone is awful in some sort of way, shape or form anyway!
This week in Gotham, Good Guy Jim Gordon gets what was coming to him and the city’s resident teenage hoodlums go on the run.
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly so read on to find out what went down this week.
The episode opens, a woman appears confused and lost at Wayne Manor. “Not sure you should be here,” says the groundskeeper. It takes about three seconds before he’s dead with his blood on his murderer’s forehead as a post-battle celebration. Rest in pieces Mr. Groundskeep, we hardly knew ya.
Energised from the kill, our Lady of Death and her crew head inside the Manor, where Bruce, Selina Kyle and butler Alfred Pennyworth reside. Unfortunately for Alfred’s good soul he’s given her exactly what she wanted by inviting her in, falling for her line about having been injured in a car accident. Alfred gets the lumps knocked out of him for his trouble (and a gunshot to the shoulder) while Selina and Bruce hotfoot it through the Wayne Manor grounds, looking to hide in the city until it’s safe to return.
Not that it will be safe any time soon though as Selina, a witness to the murder of Bruce’s parents, is a wanted woman. Whoever was behind their deaths wants her head on a plate, a stick or just dumped in the gutter. Selina (and Bruce, as he’s now on the run too) will have to hope that the Gotham City Police Department gets the assassin squad before they get to them.
Similarly fearing for his life is Penguin. Reeling from last week’s vault explosion in which he lost millions, mob boss Falcone wants to know why Penguin (his informant) didn’t tell him that mob boss Maroni was up to something. It was mob boss Fish Mooney who was behind it, protests Penguin, but Falcone wants proof it was an inside job.
So it’ll be a bad day for Fish then as while Jim interrogates Harvey Dent asking who could have known that Selina was the witness (he says he leaked Jim’s name for leverage and Dick Lovecraft may have been behind it), Harvey Bullock interrogates Selina’s homeless friend who says that Fish might have a lead about a fence who knows where Selina is. And, this is all kicking off as Falcone is digging into Fish and his other lackeys about paying more money to him in order to recoup his lost funds.
Not that any of it is phasing her (yet) at least. She speaks to henchman Butch, explaining that even if Falcone is onto her about the vault explosion, he can’t be certain of it yet. As a result, she thinks that they should get some more people on board so that they can take Falcone out once and for all. I think that this is a stupid plan and that they’ll all be dead by the end of the season but what do I know? At least she’ll be able to call in a favour from the GCPD as she decides to tear up the city – she’s just told Alfred and Harvey where to find the fence.
Chasing up a lead of his own, Jim shows up at one of Dick Lovecraft’s apartments wanting to know if the blasted blighter was behind the Selina/Bruce hit. Surprisingly, Dick cacks himself faced with the barrel of Jim’s gun and tells him that the hit squad is after him too, for knowing too much. It’s no made up story either as Dick’s literary surname would suggest, as the assassins soon show up, knock Jim out cold, Dick running scared. What happens when Jim wakes up? He finds Dick dead in his bathtub, Jim’s gun apparently being the murder weapon. Good luck scrubbing your prints off that one, Jimbo.
Things are going similarly pear-shaped for Bruce and Selina who have gone under the radar to meet this fence. Selina’s got thousands of dollars worth of merch that she pilfered from the Wayne’s but the fence is a stingy so and so and won’t give her much for it. Much more valuable he says, are Selina and Bruce and so he soon locks them in a room, waiting until the assassins get there.
The thing about locking two super smart teens in a room together is that they’ll escape, or at least try to. They make too much noise and Shady Fence sends a guard to see what’s up. There’s a chase, some hiding and a big bit of ass-whooping but Bruce manages to keep it together under interrogation, deflecting questions long enough for Selina to get out of dodge. In the nick of time Alfred and Harvey show up and save him from any more questioning, but the female assassin gets away.
When Bruce and Alfred get home, Bruce gets a nice surprise at least. It’s Selina! She sneaks up, returns those stolen goods from earlier and the two of them kiss before she hightails it out of there. It’s not safe for them to be together, after all. But aw, it’s love’s young dream!
As that whole ‘rich millionaire Dick Lovecraft got killed and Jim could take the fall for it’? The Mayor of Gotham is telling everybody that it was a suicide, with Dick being driven to it thanks to Jim’s relentless questioning and that Jim will be punished for it. With Harvey on the Mayor’s side there’s not a lot Jimmy can do and so he takes his stuff and reports to Arkham Asylum where he’ll be working for the foreseeable future.
I’m actually dealing out minus points for the queer content in this week’s Gotham.
Last week ended with Jim’s girlfriend Barbara Kean having slept with ex-girlfriend Renee Montoya, after she left Jim (it’s unclear if he’s been dumped for good) following the stress of being kidnapped. This week, however, we got no mention of it.
There was no mention of Renee or Barbara at all despite the two of them being pretty dang integral to the story. For shame Gotham, I thought you were turning things around in the gay department.
I was mostly disappointed by the lack of Barbara and Renee just for the fact that it seemed to suggest that them getting together last episode was a sweeps week ploy (last week was the final week of sweeps – sweeps being the time where television networks increase ratings to get more advertising money) and that it was insignificant after all.
This episode didn’t really have the ‘sizzle’ of a mid-season finale (though when we’re comparing it to the superiority of HTGAWM, maybe that’s not a valid criticism) so I would have liked the show to have increase the suspense a little.
Nonetheless, the show will be back after Christmas so you can expect a new episode of Gotham (and a new recap) then.
Welcome to another Faking It recap! Faking It also know as that show you’re probably ashamed to let everybody know you watch (you’re secret’s safe with us, do not fear!)
This week in the show, a whole lot of everything happened as this is the mid-season finale.
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly, so read on to find out what went down this week.
After last week’s drama, everyone is looking to overcome it. Amy is sad that Karma wants nothing to do with her (and that she has now returned her box of friendship trinkets) but she is determined to fix it, things are ‘unbearable at home’ for Liam since he told everyone that his ‘sister’ is actually his mom and is going to try and win and art fellowship, Shane is contemplating outing his ex-boyfriend Duke and Lauren is running for class president since boyfriend Theo skipped out on her.
Not that it’s going to be easy for any of them though. Karma straight up ignores Amy in the cafeteria, whilst the art fellowship man isn’t convinced that any of Liam’s work has meaning (yeah, us either). As for Lauren, her chances of succeeding in this school democracy are dashed when Shane is revealed as her likeable and popular opposition.
Amy is the first to try and dig herself out of a bad situation when she speaks to Karma’s mother at the juice truck. Karma’s mum won’t help though and any hopes Amy had of convincing her otherwise get steamrolled by Karma point blank telling her mother not to speak to Amy. They may be talking a whole lot soon though…
Jumping out of a police car is Theo. Badge on show, gun in pocket, Theo and his team of police officers arrest Karma’s parents as they’ve been dealing illegal drugs from their food truck. Uh-oh. Karma gets arrested too, having worked at the truck for a time and not wanting her friend to go down alone, Amy welts Theo in the face so they can all go down together. Friendship!
As Liam is elated to find out that he got the fellowship after all (because putting pipes together to say ‘Karma’ in a shadow is ‘art’?), Lauren is anything but. Outraged that Theo could have lied to her, she storms into school and breaks down in front of Shane. She wasn’t going to win anyway, she says, crying. Not even Shane’s confession about Duke cheers her up – instead she says she feels sorry for Duke’s new beard of a girlfriend as she deserves to know the truth about her closeted boyfriend.
Banged up, Karma and Amy can’t even sit on the same side of their jail cell. Karma is still too angry at Amy for having slept with Liam. It’ll take a whole lot of emotions to fix this then – and that’s exactly what Amy serves up in a heart-wrenching speech about how she’s loved Karma for as long as she can remember, even if it took her some time to realise it. Does it work? You betcha, and all that honesty sees Karma deciding that they should still be besties.
They’ll also get to be besties on the right side of a jail cell when Liam makes a deal with the literal devil (ok, he cuts a deal with his dad but same difference in this case) that Karma and co. can get out of jail if Liam agrees to forego that fellowship and become a pawn in the family corporation instead. Free and happy thanks to Liam, Karma and Amy hug and make up and Karma sends Amy on her way to a hot camping date with her girlfriend, Reagan.
Still suffering from the repercussions of the drama is Lauren. She asks Theo if any of it was real – presumably including their relationship. His answer? ‘No’. Ouch. She screams at him and says she opened her heart to him she even told him that she’s intersex and there it is – Lauren accidentally outs herself to the student body – she leaves, offering a ‘fuck off’ to a school journalist as she goes.
Don’t worry though! There’s still hope for one heterosexual couple on this show. Well, sort of. Liam and Karma hook up in the art room, Karma having sort of forgiven him for sleeping with her best friend. Unfortunately (for her), she can’t seem to get the image of Liam and Amy kissing out of her head and when her and Liam are done with the hooking up, that becomes all she can think of.
Also, although Theo has left her a woman scorned, the school journalist and all of Shane’s followers soon join the #TeamLauren cause and vow to help her win school presidency.
Similarly, as Amy and Reagan put the sturdiness of their tent pegs to good use, Amy starts to imagine Karma making out with her. It’s uh…something.
I suppose Reamy shippers will be disappointed by it but for those of you still on the good ship Karmy – now is the time to wave those flags around!
More happy gays as Duke does a press conference about his sexuality confirming that not only is he gay but that he’s in love with Shane. Due to the circumstances in which the confession came about (read below) I’m not in favour of them as a couple but yay to representation, I guess?
Faking It, you’re really testing me. As in, despite ‘outing’ being the consistent complaint that everyone has with this show, you continue to make it a plot point.
This week’s episode even started with Shane saying that he’s done with outing people and then in the next breath he suggests outing Duke. And, despite battling with it a little bit and vowing again to turn over a new leaf (that’s what the school presidency was all about) he does eventually settle on outing him, deciding to leak Duke’s sexuality to a gossip rag.
This is absolutely deplorable – along with the fact that Shane is still promoted as one of the most wholesome lovely characters on this show. Disgusting on so many levels and I sincerely hope the Faking It writers buck up their ideas when the show comes back after Christmas. Expect a new episode and another recap then.
On the path of gay rights and acceptance, the way that the media portrays the lives of gay is massively important. No, not just in the way they talk of Bill and David’s whirlwind marriage following the repeal of DOMA or Kathy and Sue’s adoption of a child following a court ruling but in the fictional stories too.
For those who don’t know any gay people, televisions shows and movies can help normalise the non-heterosexual relationships that really exist. It eliminates the idea of the rainbow wearing bogeyman (or woman) hiding (both literally and figuratively) in a closet.
But getting to a point where the media is fair with its portrayal isn’t always easy. We’re moving forward but playing the turtle’s game against a heteronormative hare doesn’t help conjure favourable opinion towards gay people in the short term.
As noted by GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis,
“Television networks are playing a key role in promoting cultural understanding of LGBT lives around the world, and are now producing some of the best LGBT-inclusive programming we’ve yet seen.”
Thankfully, the latest GLAAD ‘Where We Are On TV’ report for the 2014 to 2015 season (including shows scheduled to air in the Summer of 2015) show a swathe of new lesbian faces for queer women to identify with.
These include Renee Montoya on Gotham, Renee’s love interest Barbara Kean and the lesbian doctor responsible for the main mix-up at the centre of Jane the Virgin’s story. When we add all of the newcomers to those that already existed we have 74 queer women (bisexual and lesbian) of all races depicted across cable and broadcast networks.
However, although the numbers are strong (if you can call less than 10% of all characters being LGBT ‘strong’, anyway) we are faced with many challenges about representation.
Also according to GLAAD’s statistics, on both cable and broadcast, the figures of queer woman hovered just above 40%, with most queer characters being men. In total this leads to a difference of over two dozen queer men in comparison to the total of queer women. Whilst many could argue that queer representation for all genders is a plus point, a lack of real equality can lead to inherent problems.
Glee in particular comes to mind as although it has a reasonable amount of white, gay males (the show’s creator is also a white, gay male it’s worth nothing) it has gone as far as to ridicule, mock and make fun of female queerness and antagonise the fans of said characters.
Meanwhile, despite Modern Family being very proud of its two gay leads (married male couple Cam and Mitch) when it featured a lesbian couple, they were incredibly stereotypical in their portrayal which is perhaps not offensive but is definitely enough to roll your eyes.
Not only this but the portrayal of queer women on our TV suffer from the same plague of ‘mostly white characters’ that the roster of heterosexual characters do. While it’s difficult to get a break down of queer women only, it doesn’t take a genius to realise that with 117 white LGBT characters out of 170 LGBT characters, there aren’t going to be a whole lot of queer women included.
Hollywood is racist from the ground up – the practice of whitewashing and the stereotypes they promote can tell us that much – but the TV side of the industry needs to embrace and overcome its problematic past.
One the one hand showing queer faces of colour can have a massive impact as it shows people that yes, people of all races can be gay not just the effeminate white man down the street, leading them to be more accepting. While on the other, with people of colour watching more TV than white people it just makes better business sense for Hollywood – y’know, if they aren’t particularly interested in the legacy and the messages that their media leaves behind.
But with this all said, it should be praised that we’re seeing new types of stories, even if we need the demographics to change a little. We have queer parents, we have bisexual women who aren’t just a sweeps week ploy and there are queer people of all sorts of professions and backgrounds too.
Ultimately there’s a long way to go until we can be truly satisfied but we’re slowly and surely getting there, at least.
Welcome to another How to Get Away With Murder recap! HTGAWM aka the show that teaches you how to outwit and bullshit your way through the legal process!
This week on the show, we finally found out who killed Sam!
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly so read on to find out what went down this week.
Dramatic as ever, the episode opens with Annalise packing a bag for Sam. She’s done believing his lies! She’s done loving him! The argument is pretty heated as the two yell things at each other, about Sam possibly having killed Lila, about Annalise cheating with another man and about their marriage being a total wreck. It leads to Sam’s hands around Annalise’s neck, saying she’s just a piece of ass. He is not a good guy, at all and Annalise leaves to get some space.
Just Sam alone in the house drinking himself into a stupor, it gives Rebecca the perfect opportunity to sneak in and use the thumb drive she got from Nate (Annalise’s ex-lover) to steal incriminating data from Sam’s laptop. After Wes tells them about Rebecca’s plan and that Sam may have killed Lila, he, Connor and Laurel are already on their way to stop her though, so will she do it?
She gets a good way into the house until Michaela, who’d showed up just minutes earlier to present the immunity trophy (that gets them out of the end of semester exam) to Annalise, points her out to Sam, not realising what’s going on. Uh oh. “Call Wes” she tells Michaela before sprinting up the stairs to Sam and Annalise’s room, locking the door and sticking the thumb drive into his laptop. He soon makes it through the door, relegating her to the bathroom laptop still in hand. With Sam banging furiously on the bathroom door and Michaela hyperventilating down the phone, the only people who can rescue Rebecca are the three musketeers.
As they show up and escort Rebecca out, Sam pounces, needing Laurel to get the thumb drive before he does. But Sam fights Wes off, stands up and chases Laurel out. But as he comes for her, Michaela saves the day, throwing Sam over the balcony of the staircase, screaming as he hits the wood and hits the ground with a thud. Yeah, he’s not getting up anytime soon.
Oh, but he is. As the group are fighting amongst themselves over what to do, Sam gets up and starts strangling Rebecca. Wes steps in just in the nick of time, hitting him over the head with the immunity trophy. Ok, he’s as dead as a dead thing now, no doubt about it.
In order to clean up this complete and utter mess, Wes cleans Rebecca up and puts her in a motel, telling her not to go anywhere. Then, he hotfoots it back to the Keating’s to get the trophy, aka the murder weapon aka the thing that’s going to tie them to Sam’s murder. “I’m sorry”, he says, staring at the body. But, a murder weapon is useless unless they do something about that large, adult body that’s just sitting in the Keating’s front room. They vote (Wes rigs it in his favour) and they go and get the body.
They have good time to do so too as Annalise is busy making her case to Nate, telling him how awful Sam is and proceeding to have sex with Nate in his apartment. Chivalry’s not dead, I guess?. Meanwhile, the group hit up the bonfire for an alibi, heading back to get the body. Body rolled up, weapon cleaned up and blood splatter wet wiped away, they do their bit to dispose of Sam’s very dead self.
Also having heterosexy funtimes, is Bonnie who is drunk out her face. First she makes out with a guy she met at a bar and then she visits Asher (another one of Annalise’s students) to sleep with him. She really is having her fun tonight! At least, in a drunk, gross stupor anyway.
As for the less sexy happenings of corpse disposal, the group of students is burning Sam’s body (with scenes of Annalise returning home and leaving an emotional voicemail for Sam edited over the top – thanks HTGAWM producers!), mashing it up and fitting it into bags. They then proceed to dump that gross ish in a dumpster (as you do) because an incinerator is too much effort? That’s the general gist, so I suppose we’ll have to wait and see if that proves to be the thing that lands them in it. Oh and Michaela’s engagement ring came off at some point too (she doesn’t know when) and that’s definitely going to cause problems further up the line.
What follows the death is a lot of emotions, naturally. There’s Laurel who’s proving to Frank that she actually likes him and trusts him (enough to get him to put the trophy back at Annalise’s), Michaela visits fiancée Aiden’s mother to sign a pre-nup and Annalise makes a plea to Bonnie, explaining that she’s worried about Sam.
All of them join up again in the office not long after, fretting that someone is onto them. Bonnie explains the situation to everybody. Well, some of it. Sam is missing, she says, Annalise has called the police and she wants everybody to be completely honest when they ask them the questions.
AND THEN! The show flashes back to when Wes picked up the trophy! “I’m sorry,” he says. “Don’t be,” replies Annalise. YOU GUYS, SHE WAS SAT AT HER DESK, SHE KNOWS SAM IS DEAD, SHE KNOWS HER STUDENTS PROBABLY KILLED HIM, EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING SO MUCH!
Phew, everybody get that? HTGAWM is pure fire.
Minimal gay in this episode of HTGAWM. After they got rid of Sam’s body Connor visited ex-boyfriend Oliver, visibly shaken. Oliver let him stay over but when he asked Connor what was wrong he lied through his teeth and told Oliver that he was high when he showed up and that he has a drug problem.
Hardly the best pillar to build a relationship on, but there you have it.
The biggest issue I had with this is that Bonnie and Asher had sex while she was under the influence. Technically, this is rape. Asher as a law student should know this. He’s a rapist now and I’ll be incredibly disappointed if the show doesn’t address this at some point.
This is the last HTGAWM episode until the new year (where it’ll air six more episodes) so you can expect a new recap then!
Welcome to another Faking It recap! Faking It also known as that moderately okay queer TV show from the channel that brings you the latest in hetero-leaning love songs!
This week in Faking It, there actually wasn’t a lot of gay. But in the spirit of the show, let’s fake our enthusiasm and hope for more in future!
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly, so read on to find out what went down this week.
Last week saw Karma find out that her boyfriend Liam had slept with her best friend Amy. The end of the episode saw Karma throw him out of her room in a rage! This week we see the fallout from that.
That ‘fallout’ has to be put on hold for all of 15 minutes though as after waltzing into school in a frenzy, worried that Karma will put her head on a stick, Amy is actually comforted by a lovely cuddle from her BFF. Karma tells her “The only person to blame is Liam F*****g Booker!”. Success? Success!
Convinced that Liam has forced her into silence, Karma chooses not to hate her best friend, which is just as well as part of Hester High’s annual social experiment, Amy is set to become Karma’s servant! Rain Dweller and Cloud Spinner robes donned, the two are joined in the social hierarchy by lowly Mud Movers Liam, Shane and Lauren along with Theo who’s part of police group Fire Dancers.
Sadly, the first instances of social tension creep in when Theo isn’t too keen on switching with Mud Mover Layla to hang out with new girlfriend Lauren. Instead, he says, he’d rather ‘play by the rules’ and hang out with pot dealer Brandy. Awkward!
Also dealing with the new rules are Liam and Karma, Karman who as a Cloud Spinner (adorably referred to as a ‘Salad Spinner’ by Amy) decides that Mud Movers aren’t to interact with them in an effort to get Liam off her case. Mud Movers’ punishment for violating this? They’ll be shot by a Fire Dancer and anyone who gets shot is ‘dead’ and is relegated to the basement to watch ancient sex education videos. But, despite staying well away from Cloud Spinners, Liam’s aggressive texting to Karma gets every single one of the Mud Movers’ phones taken off of them.
Naturally, Lauren, Liam and Shane who has also been making good use of his phone (to text his closeted ex-boyfriend) hatch a plan over a lunch of unidentifiable slop to break into the Cloud Spinners lair and get their phones back. Also to cause anarchy. Same difference really. Plan engaged, the Mud Movers bust into the lair Trojan Horse style via an ice cream cart but foiled in an instance, Liam pays the ultimate price. Despite apologising, trying to convince Karma that Amy is as guilty as he is and even telling Karma he loves her, she shoots him with a Fire Dancer’s gun and so off to the basement with him.
Elsewhere in hetero-loveland, Lauren confronts Theo about his avoidance. He says he’s not interested in Brandy, he only wants Lauren and doesn’t care that she was born intersex. Aww, it’s the cutest. He even says he wants to set up a meeting with her after school to tell her a secret of his own!
Still not satisfied with having shot Liam earlier in the episode, Karma calls a meeting to put Liam’s dirty laundry on blast. She plans to tell the school that Liam’s family are big corporation owning meanies, but before she gets a chance, Rain Dweller Amy shoots her and has Karma sent to the basement before she can say another word. Amy’s punishment? She’s shot and sent to the basement too. Ah, the three, love triangled musketeers reunited at once!
Abstinence videos playing, Amy defends her Karma shooting, telling her it would have been a bad idea to tell the whole school about Liam’s family secret. Furthermore, Liam’s family stuff is “a lot more complicated than that”. Uh oh, how does Amy know about Liam’s family? That’s precisely what Karma asks and as she’s not privy to Amy showing up and causing trouble at Liam’s house a few episodes ago, automatically assumes that something more is going on between them.
Making an emotional plea to forgive or hate them both, Amy explains that she was selfish. Karma’s verdict? She decides to hate them both and we later see her ignoring a text from Amy and ripping down all of the Karmy photos she has stuck on her mirror. Heartbreak emoji times 50, y’all.
As for Lauren waiting for Theo, she waits and waits and waits and waits. He doesn’t show.
The only gay we get in this episode is right at the beginning of the episode. Girlfriend Reagan wakes Amy up with a few kisses, apparently having slept together the night before. It’s the shortest scene in the history of short scenes, but Reamy shippers eat your heart out.
I have quite a lot of issues with Karma, namely that she is oft presented as the good guy. Over the last two seasons we’ve seen her walk all over Amy like a doormat with her name on it so although she was probably quite right to be mad at Amy for sleeping with Liam (and vice versa) where is the retribution for all of the times that Karma has treated Amy like dirt (dare I say, like a Mud Mover)?
The next episode appears to be the last in this half of the series so stay tuned for my recap of that.
Welcome to another Gotham recap! Gotham also known as the show that features more Bad Eggs than an abandoned farmhouse.
This week on the show there is Real Queer Content! That’s really all I need to say to get you to take interest, I know.
As always, the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly, so read on to find out what went down this week.
In the very first episode of Gotham we saw the billionaire couple of Thomas and Martha Wayne killed in a back alley as they walked with their son. 9 episodes into the show and all we’ve gotten so far is that Selina ‘Catwoman’ Kyle is a witness and that the killer was wearing really shiny shoes. So basically we’ve gotten nowhere.
This week we might have the smallest of leads though as main character Jim Gordon takes a visit to Harvey Dent, the goodie two shoes lawyer that Major Crimes Unit detectives Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen recommended. Providing him with the suspect sketch (that was put together with Catwoman’s help), Dent wants to go after a rich mogul type called ‘Dick Lovecraft’ (nice name, buddy) and use the idea of a witness to scare him crapless.
…only it doesn’t go like that (but when does it ever). The man is adamant that they’re looking in all the wrong places and even when Dent puts on his best scowl, Lovecraft pleads his innocence. Guilty, innocent or morally grey, this lead just evaporated into dust.
A more successful aspect of Gordon’s career is the general police beat. A fellow named Ian Hargrove (mentally ill, incredibly talented bomb maker) has just been busted out of prison by a team of Russian mobsters. Their aim? Blow some stuff up! Make some money in the process! All in a day’s work for organised criminals.
Their plan consists of two parts. First they have to use Ian’s skills to blow up a guard tower (with a rigged basket of sweet goods) to get better, more powerful explosives. Four guards dead and the explosives gotten, the mobsters think they’re well on their way to success but little did they know that Ian had slipped in a piece of metal signage into the basket, detailing his location. And that’s how Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock show up at the mobsters warehouse.
Ian dumps the mobsters in it and tells Jim and Harvey that not only did the mobsters kidnap him and threaten to kill his brother and his family, but that they’re using these heavy duty explosives to launch an assault on one of Carmine Falcone’s vaults. Unfortunately, the world’s most useless detective duo (I mean, going to a suspect’s hideout without backup, really?) pay the price for their ineptness when the mobsters show up and shoot at them (with terrible aim) until they’re able to herd Ian off and back away from Jim and Harvey without maiming them.
Not that it deters their efforts though, as the mobsters soon meet up with their boss to discuss the finer details of the plan…it’s Fish Mooney! Of course it is. She tells them not to mess up because she has a lot riding on it, plus, once they break into Falcone’s vault, the money is theirs!
Except, not really. Showing up at the vault the next day, the mobsters (complete with Ian Hargrove) proceed to blow the bloody doors off of Falcone’s vault. But as they’re carrying the money out to their getaway truck Jim and Harvey show up to stop them. They probably deserve to be stopped since they were carrying the money out one by one but alas they somehow think they can get out of it by pulling guns on the two detectives.
Given that we still have half a season left of the show, obviously Jim and Harvey don’t die. Instead, after encouraging Ian to move a little closer to them, the truck blows up thanks to a cell-phone activated bomb under the vehicle that was set off by Mooney’s henchman, Butch, killing every single one of the mobsters in the process.
1-0 to Mooney against Falcone? Not quite. Double crossing ratbag Penguin broke into Liza’s apartment this week (Liza being the girl Mooney hired to spy on Falcone) and smells her belongings, Weird, I know. But when Penguin shows up to Mooney’s club, smelling her to confirm that Liza and Mooney are working together, it could set up a big bit of drama in the episodes to come.
Crime plots done for the week, the heterosexual romance storylines that I know we all enjoy involved the aforementioned Catwoman and rich orphan Bruce Wayne while Jim Gordon was having some relationship troubles of his own.
You see, Catwoman and Bruce ‘Future Batman’ Wayne are now living together after Gordon explained that she needed a place to stay. The two teens living together involves food fights, Catwoman being moody and Bruce’s butler Alfred having to clean up after them. It also involves Catwoman offering to kiss Bruce and Bruce telling Alfred he ‘likes’ Catwoman. I could tell you what I think is going to happen with them but let’s be honest, none of us really care!
Slightly more interesting is the fact that after being back on alcohol, former addict (and Jim Gordon’s canonically queer girlfriend) Barbara has gotten out of dodge, explaining that she needs some space. Or something. The point is she’s away from Jim…
…and is now with (ex-girlfriend) Renee Montoya instead! Hurray!
Barbrenee (how do we feel about this portmanteau readers? Let me know in the comments) shippers get excited! This week finally showed the two having mutual feelings for each other, rather than Renee being an adorable pant-suited puppy because she still likes Barbara a whole bunch.
This week’s episode of Gotham ended with Barbara and Renee in bed together, the final scene being them kissing (just about). Honestly, it’s hardly a full makeout and there’s a lot to be said about whether this means Barbara has cheated on Jim (or if she’ll pull out that old ‘we were on a break!’ classic form Friends) but this is definitely a step forward.
The stuff between Bruce and Selina was boring, the crime plot was solid but nothing special and Penguin was probably in this episode for no other reason than the actor who plays him is on the payroll. That said, bringing Harvey Dent on board was a fantastic idea and Barbara/Renee is nice to see. One of the best episodes of the season, really!
Welcome to another How to Get Away With Murder recap! HTGAWM also know as the show where everything happens all of the time and it’s a wonder that I’m able to recap it at all!
This week on the show, more of Everything happened. It was honestly one of the most dramatic pieces of television I’ve seen in my life and I hope Emmy voters are paying attention.
As always, the recaps are split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly so read on to find out what went down this week.
As mentioned, so so much happened this week. The series started with the death of Sam Keating, main character Annalise’s husband, and finally we’ve gotten up to the night of his death.
Before we can get to that (we find out who killed Sam next week), Annalise has to decide whether she trusts her husband or not, following on from the surprising revelation that Sam’s dead mistress was pregnant before she died. Annalise hasn’t decided whether or not to believe him when he says he didn’t know that she was pregnant but it weighs on her mind as she takes her new case.
The family that Annalise is defending have come into a spot of bother as after taking some medication, their client appears to have killed their nanny. She has no recollection of the event because her medication renders her unconscious and so Annalise and co. want to deem that it wasn’t premeditated and that it wasn’t her fault.
They’ll need luck though as when put on the stand, the defendant’s son explains that he loved the nanny, like he loved her loved her. Not only does this provide his mother with a motive but it also completely blind sides Annalise’s team, leading her to yell at Bonnie (who’s meant to tell her about things like these) and Connor (who spoke to the son beforehand) for not doing their jobs properly.
It’s soon rectified though as Connor puts on his best ‘I’m a heterosexual and can relate to being in love with a woman I swear to go’ face to go and talk to the defendant’s son, learning that the nanny gave him an STD. Connor explains that this means diddly squat in the larger scheme of things, or so he thinks anyway as some quick thinking smarts from former pre-med student Michaela solves the case.
Putting the defendant’s husband on the stand, Annalise accuses him of sleeping with the nanny too and says that he and his son caught the same STD from her. Is she right? Of course she is and despite the husband trying to worm his way out of it, the dirty cheater soon offers an “I’m sorry” towards his wife, admitting that he killed the nanny after finding out that she was sleeping with he and his son, before framing his wife for it. Case won – and while the defendant is mad at Annalise for saving her bacon but putting her husband in prison, Annalise says she’ll thank her later.
Also having trouble with men are Laurel, Michaela and Rebecca.
All Laurel wanted was a few hookups with her sort-of boss! Some light cheating with an asshole to compliment her genuinely lovely boyfriend! Sadly though, as they make it to his place (they’re literally on the floor kissing) his girlfriend shows up and puts an end to it. Yikes!
Michaela’s plans are more simple, as her fiancé Aiden wants her to sign a prenup that she, naturally, doesn’t want to sign. Her wanting to stay married to him forever and ever and ever and all that. His mum isn’t having any of it though, having heated words with Michaela over dinner that leads to her seemingly threatening to ruin Michaela’s cushty life. Hm, I suppose we’ll see that one play out sometime after next week.
And then, there’s Rebecca.
As it’s now been brought to light that Lila (Sam’s dead mistress) was pregnant before she died, Nate (Annalise’s ex-lover and former cop) has instructed Rebecca to go and get a sample of hair from the Keating’s bathroom in order to prove that Sam was the father. When a visit to their house goes pear-shaped (specifically, Sam throws Rebecca out, saying she’s not welcome without Annalise around) Nate gives her a USB and tells her to stick it in Sam’s laptop and steal as much data as she can, wanting to use the files for evidence. Sadly though, Rebecca’s boyfriend Wes sees her with Nate and after explaining herself he’s not so approving. After arguing about it she hightails it out of Wes’ apartment, USB stick in hand. We don’t see what she does next, though.
With Connor unable to exchange sex for evidence (for a change), the only gay was left up to Bonnie. And by gay I mean ‘subtext that I’m going to latch onto like a desperate barnacle’.
Specifically, in a late night meeting, Bonnie and Sam have a conversation about the dead girl, Lila. Bonnie says that on the night that Lila died she came to their house looking for Annalise, presumably to tell Annalise that she was pregnant with her husband’s baby, only, Bonnie turned her away and told her not to bother.
What does this mean? It means that if Lila was going to tell Annalise and that she was unwilling to keep the pregnancy a secret anymore, then Sam must have known about it already. Bonnie says this and Sam suggests that they keep his knowing a secret from Annalise and then he kisses her. When will this man learn not to cheat…
Immediately after agreeing not to tell Annalise, Bonnie tells Annalise. In tears, Bonnie stands in Annalise’s study she tells her everything she knows – including that Sam kissed her because he thought he was finally giving her what she wanted. Well, wasn’t he? It’s implied that she didn’t want that all and judging by the way she literally gets on her knees and presses, sobbing against Annalise’s legs for her to understand that her husband is The Worst, we’re all inclined to believe her.
Annalise does at least trust her/think fondly of Bonnie and her opinions anyway because the episode ends with Annalise telling Sam that she’s told the D.A to take DNA samples from everyone in Lila’s life to find out who the father is. And of course, that means that Sam will have to provide DNA too.
Other than the fact that #BisexualBonnieWinterbottom is still not canon, there wasn’t really anything wrong with the episode.
My nails are bitten, I’m at the edge of my seat and my popcorn has been ready for consumption for weeks in anticipation of the next episode, so expect another recap then.
Welcome to another Gotham recap! Gotham known as the show where literally not a single person on this show is completely good and that’s brilliant.
This week on the show, main character Jim Gordon embraced that one Cyndi Lauper song (I mean True Colors, not Girls Just Wanna Have Fun) and became the morally corrupt protagonist that we all knew he could be!
As always the recap is split into The Plot, The Gay and The Ugly. Read on to find on to find out what went down this week.
You say office hazard and definite violation of health and safety, they say encouragement of strength, toughness and honour in the workplace! Yes, that’s the line being spun to us this week in Gotham when Jim and Harvey have to investigate a murder of a financial worker, which appears to have been done using office supplies.
Hitting up the location, the detective duo are aided by Gotham City PD boffin Edward Nygma who soon discovers that the deceased has a finger in his mouth. Trying to switch up his diet or has he did he literally manage to take a chunk out of his killer before croaking it? It’s the latter, obviously, but it soon leads them to a back alley doctor who deals with injuries that people aren’t too fond about going to the hospital about.
After a bit of (metaphorical) arm tugging, the doctor gives up a business card for some firm in the city. Naturally upon questioning why so many of his employees have limps, bruises and disfigurements and why his office is filled with really scary warrior armour and masks, the firm’s head honcho says ‘war is great and fascinating ps Jim I can totes tell that you have a killer in you bee tee dubs’.
Buying into the idea that Jim loves a good fight, Harvey leaves him to solve the case on his own and it’s why Jim is all by his lonesome when he visits one of the boss’ owned properties, discovering the scene where the murder must have taken place. Sadly, that lone wolf thing soon leads to disaster when that boss man sticks him in a circle of bad’uns and offers a million dollars to whoever can kill Jim first!
What he didn’t count on however, is that Jim can certainly hold his own and after ousting (read: killing in the name of self defense/unnecessary plot device deaths) the four bad guys, their boss is forced to take matters into his own hands. But, after a beautifully choreographed fight (props to the Gotham stunt doubles for that!), Jim nearly lumps the life force out of that guy too. Thankfully, Police Chief Essen shows up on time to stop him, feeling remorseful that she left him for dead the previous week.
Where crimes are being solved by the GCPD, the ruthless criminals of mob boss Fish Mooney and limping killer (and former Mooney assistant) Penguin are breaking laws like they do best.
Namely, Mooney is scheming and Penguin is scheming to find out what those schemes are.
After dispatching her ‘weapon woman’ to shack up with rival mob boss Falcone several weeks ago, Mooney gives her a vial filled with sleeping medicine this week and tasks her with robbing him blind. Most of the medicine doesn’t make it into Falcone’s tea but nonetheless we’ll likely see how it plays out next week. Penguin, on the other hand, simply learns that Mooney has someone close to Falcone.
Gotham’s kid heroes are having a miserable ol’ time too. After his first day of school Bruce Wayne gets the snot bullied and pummelled out of him by a group of classmates taking the micky that he doesn’t have a mom and dad. That’s really silly considering that he’s a billionaire with enough money and power to probably make their lives hell but alas, Alfred encourages him to man up and beat the crap out of the bully on his doorstep. So that he does and then they leave to get pizza, yay!
Mini Catwoman gets pulled in by the police for dragging her stolen hoard of goods in broad daylight. I’m not entirely why she was in this episode at all if I’m honest but she was, so I’m noting it.
With Detective Renee Montoya, there was no gay. All that we did get was Barbara drinking and her boyfriend Jim, not realising that she had a serious addiction problem once upon a time, only chastising her for drinking during the day rather than y’know, checking her into rehab.
With Jim being a stone cold killer and Barbara spiralling into an alcohol fuelled…spiral, there’s a chance that they’ll break up. It;s not the nicest of circumstances but it’s certainly something for Renee/Barbara shippers to hold onto.
While the idea that Bruce’s beating up of the bullies was right and just made me uncomfortable (as Bruce’s guardian the fact that Alfred encouraged him to solve his problem with his fists is absolutely terrible) my biggest problem with this week’s ep is the lack of Montoya.
Of course Montoya is my favourite character, she’s a queer woman of colour for crying out loud! I wish we saw more of her is all, so hopefully she’ll make a pantsuited return next week.
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