Once upon a time, this girl (me) was trying to play it straight, when i found myself wandering through the DVD section in Target and i happened to come upon this gem:
Obvs i bought it and ran home and watched the entire season in maybe two days. I was hooked.
For me, the L word totally changed my life. I mean, this show, this one that i now loathe, made me feel like it was ok to be gay, like maybe, just maybe my options stretched beyond flannel and mullets.
Today (or really, yesterday) the series ended and I am so completely pissed off that the show has gone so completely off the deep end i can barely stand it.
No, i take that back. I can't stand it. I really can't. I think that Ilene Chaiken is a self-righteous asshole/terrible writer. She took a really amazing thing, which, ps, was totally her idea in the first place and let it mutate into something that i feel embarassed to associate myself with. The L word is now, to me, something i can barely stomach, like that god-awful Shot At Love show people keep telling me about. It's really an effing shame that it had to go like this.
The writing has gone so completely down hill that I cringe, literally CRINGE when i watch the credits and see: "WRITTEN BY ILENE CHAIKEN". Wanna know why? Because she is a terrible writer. She is sooo bad at telling stories it nearly makes my ears bleed.
I dunno. I guess I'm just pissed b/c I used to feel like the show stood for something, like i had this one great thing i could call my own that was an important representation of our "community". And now...
Tonight was the last episode, and thank g-d, because it was getting pretty rough. This entire season, and most of the last two seasons have been so bad i wanna gouge my eyes out. I kind of feel like they jumped the shark when they killed Dana/left Carmen at the alter. I mean... Really, Papi? Really?!
Who would leave her at the alter?
The answer is NO ONE.
Also, early thirty-something tennis pros do not get diagnosed with an early stage of breast cancer and then die like, two months later. It just doesn't fucking happen. You know what else doesn't happen? Um... Transmen who are nearing the end of their transition do NOT get fucking pregnant, even if they have unprotected vaginal intercourse with their gay boyfriend. Which, i mean, HELLO! So much of that (second to) last sentence doesn't make any GD sense.
She should've lived.
He should NOT have been forced to sport ANY facial hair b/c we can all safely say that none of it worked.
Ilene! You are killing me.
Scratch that. You killed Jenny. Or maybe Sounder did. Although i kind of feel like Mark did b/c Jenny obvs stole his camera for her cute/ridiculous "farewell video" or whatever the fuck that was supposed to be, aka the vagina tease that showed 2.5 seconds of Carmen off somewhere being hot/NOT having sex with Shane. I mean, SERIOUSLY!!
This shit has gotten so bad i feel embarassed for everyone involved.
(makes me miss the soul patch and i never, EVER thought i'd say that.)
Tonight, my friends and i gathered to watch the show armed with a drinking game that was totally awesome and was basically the highlight of the night (thank you, Chelsea!). And it's sad, b/c the highlight should've been all the warm fuzzy feelings we had about a show that changed us all in one way shape or form, FINALLY coming full circle.
But you know what? The show didn't even kind of come full circle, unless you count the cute deja vu moment that happened when Shane was coming home in the AM and Tina and Bette were sitting on the porch just like they did in the very first episode. You know, back when the show used to be good.
(ps: thank you Dorothy Surrenders for making these)
There was absolutely no resolution. In fact, i would say, of the few shows i have ever seen all the way through, i feel like they left way more loose ends than they tied up. I mean, even the series finale of Arrested Development felt like it concluded in some fashion b/c they were at least (!!!) closing one chapter, leaving the possibility for another one to follow.
But tonight, they just started a whole mess of shit and asked a lot questions that were never answered and only alluded to Jenny's death. THE WHOLE ENTIRE CLIFF HANGER OF THIS G-D FORSAKEN SEASON WAS ABOUT WHO KILLED JENNY AND WE DIDN'T EVEN SEE HER DIE!!
I mean, who should i have blown to get a good story out of Ilene? Worst episode ever, except maybe the one where nothing happened. Wait... that was like half 12 episodes. Or maybe the one where they threw the baby shower and everyone was talking at the same time about birthing plans for no reason whatsoever. Or every single episode beyond giving Max facial hair, or after Jenny went mean crazy and not funny crazy. I mean, W? T? F? Ilene, Ilene, Ilene...
You killed me softly tonight. You really did. Thanks for ruining something i really loved. Thanks for ending a show that changed my life in the worst way possible. Thanks for being a vagina tease all these years. Thanks for mis-representing trans issues. Thanks for killing Dana. (Thanks for at least admitting that that was a horrible idea.) Thanks for never placing value on character backstories. Thanks for Papi. Thanks for writing horrible dialog. Thanks for changing everyone's personalities constantly. Thanks for sending characters into the vortex. Thanks for making all of us want to pull out our hair out every episode of late. And most of all, thanks for being really self-righteous about it the entire fucking time.
You are a horrible, horrible writer and i am very, very disappointed in the way you handled the "conclusion" of a really fucking important show.
Thanks.
Talk to you never,
Elida
