L Word Recap 603: Shock and Awe

Folks? Just when we all thought there was no saving this train wreck, the (mostly intentional) funny is back! Oh, Angela Robinson. As usual, you are my hero.


Folks? Just when we all thought there was no saving this train wreck, the (mostly intentional) funny is back! Oh, Angela Robinson. As usual, you are my hero.

Tina reports to Aaron’s office, where she’s accused of collaborating with Jenny to steal the Lez The Girls film negative. (Aaron’s last name is Kornbluth? No wonder he’s so pissed off all the time.) Aaron stalks off, but not before charging Tina, who he holds personally responsible for all of this, with the task of recovering the negative from Jenny. In an angry aside, Tina joins the suspect of the week club, threatening to off Jenny.

Demented jack-in-the-box music heralds the coming of something creepy as the camera pans up someone’s body in bed. Sure enough, Shenny rears its ugly double-head: Jenny and Shane are curled up together, sleeping. Naked. Together. Eeugh.

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Something furry and barky rouses Shane. OMG! Breaking news, TV fans. Sounder II LIVES!!!

Shane takes in her surroundings, surprised to find herself in the lair of the beast. Instead of fleeing sensibly to the nearest radiation scrub down facility, she wakes Jenny with feather light touches on the arm and a fond smile. Shane: “Shit. I don’t know what to say.” (I think “shit” sums it up pretty nicely, Shane.) Jenny: “I’m happy we fucked.” Gah! Funny, but GAH! They start getting it on again, but we are saved from further trauma by the doorbell and the arrival of Alice, Patron Saint of Squicked Cock-Blocking, who’s there to workshop her script treatment with Jenny.

Queen Jenny orders manservant Shane to dress and answer the door after a quick ‘Are we okay?’ powwow and still more kissing. There’s that doorbell again. Jenny: “Alice is so annoying!” (Kettle, I think you’re calling the pot a psychotic, egomanical megahosebeast!)

Alice takes one look at Shane and starts to twig: “Ah. I know that look… the ‘I had sex all night’ look.” Shane deadpans it, but then Jenny refers to Shane as her “little monkey.” The camera pushes in on Alice watching the two of them together, suspicion and growing horror playing across her face.

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Shane and Jenny traipse off momentarily, leaving Alice to quietly freak: “Shit. Shit. Shit! EW! OMG.” Shane reappears. Alice: “Tell me you didn’t.” Shane says they’ll talk later. Alice is so wigged she carefully averts her eyes, unable to look at the two of them. She flees to the bathroom, where she texts frantically (“OMG!!!!! Shane and Jenny HAD SEX!!!!” … “WITH EACH OTHER!!!!!!!”) to:

• Helena, who screams and falls off her treadmill
• Tina, “What the fuck?!”
• Tasha, who grins and shakes her head
• Bette, who interrupts a staff meeting, laughing out loud in disbelief at the first text, and then again, hysterically, at the second one
• Kit, who has yet to learn how to text and will remain blissfully ignorant, for now…

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Now on the phone with Helena, Alice eavesdrops on Shane and Jenny. Jenny says she has no expectations for their relationship and wants to set boundaries since they live together. Jenny appearing to crave healthy relationship parameters? Be afraid, people. Be very afraid!

For posterity’s sake, I am going on record right now stating that I think Jenny is playing Shane with the intent to lure her in and humiliate and destroy her. This is vengeance! This is war! I think she’ll go after Tina and Alice, and all the rest of them (“And your little dog Angie Portard!”), too.

Alice is still freaking out. Helena pulls it together long enough to play the “now, now, they’re grown women” maturity card on Alice, but when informed that Shane just told Jenny she’s “a good kisser,” Helena hops up and down like a little girl confronted with a spider the size of New Jersey, squealing: “Ew! I can’t. That’s disgusting!” Did I mention that I fucking LOVE this episode?!

Jenny asks Alice not to mention to anyone the fact that she’s boinking Shane. Right. Because tact and secrecy are precisely what Alice is known for. Set up, much?!

In a meeting with Jodi — where Tom seems there to 1) insult Bette’s signing abilities, and 2) bear witness — Bette asks Jodi to resign and threatens to fire her when she refuses. Oh, Bette. That was incredibly dumb. Predictable and in-character, but dumb.

Alice’s treatment turns out to be a murder mystery. (Shocking!) Jenny tells Alice her story idea is crap and dismissively suggests a career as a cartoon voice-over artist.

Alice leaves just as Tina arrives to confront Jenny about the stolen negative. Jenny plays dumb, passionately insisting that she needs this movie to come out more than anyone, and would never sabotage its release. (Suuuuure she wouldn’t…)

At The Planet, Shane admits to Alice that the sex was better than she expected. (Gross!) After downplaying the significance of the hookup and insisting that “it’s not like we’re gonna add water and have an instant relationship,” Shane, (who has lived in West Hollywood for HOW long?), rushes off to buy beer on the way home at Jenny’s bidding. “I gotta go. I gotta find a liquor store.” Oh, bad writing. We missed you. Not.

Bette barges into Phyllis’ office complaining about Jodi only to find that Jodi is already there with Tom. It’s intervention time! Phyllis warns Bette that her behavior to Jodi smacks of sexual harassment and has to stop. It’s a deserved lecture, but still… ouch!

Jenny wakes Shane for some late night sweet talk with a side of please pass the barf bag nookie.

On The Look, Alice foregoes outing celebrities for a day and instead reads a heartbreaking letter from the sister of a gay-bashed, murdered gay teenager. Alice makes a heartfelt case that homophobia “is alive and well”—to the dismay of her producer and co-hosts.

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Back at Shaolin studios, Tina learns that whoever stole the negative also forged a letter in her name, implicating her in the theft. (Oh, yeah. It’s totally Jenny!)

At the campus bar, Phyllis fires Bette. (!!!) It turns out that grad student Nadia made a complaint about Bette after their affair, too, and Phyllis never told her. That makes Jodi strike number two. Yikes. Now that Bette is no longer her employee, Phyllis is free to make a confession: “Bette, I’ve always found you wildly, exquisitely attractive.” Bette gets the giggles again. Phyllis tells Bette she’d leave fiancé Joyce in a cowgirl minute if Bette ever gave her “the slightest encouragement,” and that she’s the woman of her dreams! Phyllis makes a pass, and Bette almost falls off her bar stool in her hurry to escape.

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Dylan has sent flowers to Helena with the card reading, “You’re beautiful when you’re angry.” Waist-deep in denial, Helena takes one of the flowers over to a beautiful woman and starts trying to convince herself she’s not still carrying a torch for the woman who betrayed her flirting.

Tasha helps Alice try to decide what to wear to a meeting with her producer the next day; Alice thinks she’s about to get fired for talking about homophobia and gay-bashing on the air. Alice gets a call from someone at the local GLBT Center and we cut to…

Alice and Tasha walking into the center. Alice is greeted enthusiastically by a frazzled employee, and they are escorted to the roof. It turns out the girl who wrote the letter about her dead brother is also gay, and is threatening to jump off the building. Alice has been called in to talk her down? Seriously? Tasha denigrates Alice’s usefulness in crisis situations. Stung, Alice bucks up her courage and climbs onto the ledge to talk to Sadly Awkward Plot Device, uh, I mean Marie. After an initial misstep, Alice manages to talk the kid down.

At The Hit Club, Sunset Boulevard is back, flirting with a smokin’ hot Kit. Proud of Alice, Tasha leads the gang in toasting her good-doing. Poor Kit sees Jenny and Shane making out in the parking lot, and her brain almost visibly implodes. Shane walks into the club, notably alone, and sits down with the group. Bette sniggers into her cosmo. Jenny arrives and greets Bette, who bursts out laughing again, continuing to giggle all the way through the next few minutes of boring exposition dialogue. (Amen, sister!)

Jenny leaves to scope out the VIP room. Shane makes a lame excuse to join her. Sunset calls Kit up to dance with her. (Aww. They’re so cute! They have to hook up!) Jenny and Shane exchange sweet nothings and then kiss on a balcony as the gang watches them from below.

Bette falls over on the couch laughing.

And… SCENE!

Next week: Max struggles to adjust to his pregnancy. Jenny pushes Shane’s (and everyone else’s) buttons. And Kelly Wentworth offers Bette a job!

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