On this chapter of The Queerest Things I Watched Last Week – Kat and Adena go through a getting to know you better experience on The Bold Type, and I am blown away by Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette.
- The Bold Type – Season 2 Episode 4 “OMG” [Live]
This episode is about Kat getting to know Adena and the queer female community better. Adena gets an invite to a party, and she’s not feeling up to going. Kat talks her into it because Adena knows all of her friends, and she hasn’t met any of Adena’s.
I feel like we the audience and Kat don’t know a ton about Adena and her past. Now that Adena and Kat have gotten pretty serious and are living together, it’s a good time to get to know your girlfriend well. Also, I’m the same way. I want to know everything about my wife’s past, because I’m a big fan. I pressured her into going to her 20th high school reunion, because I wanted to see what the people she went to high school were like. Spoiler alert: they were pretty boring, and I now understand why she didn’t want to go.
Kat and Adena arrive at the party, and it’s at a mythical “lesbian bar.”
This tweet by @njnic23 summed it up pretty well.
Dear @BoldTypeWriters, inquiring lesbians of NYC want to know… WHERE THE HECK IS THAT BAR AND HOW DO I FIND IT? #TheBoldType
— Nic ⚡️👵🏾🏳️🌈🇬🇩 (@njnic23) June 27, 2018
I’ve been to all the queer female bars that are still standing in Manhattan and none of them look like this.
I do like the reminder that Kat is new to the whole same-sex relationship thing and doesn’t know a lot about the queer community. Anyone who has had the experience of being someone’s first girlfriend (or being the first girlfriend of someone already out) knows it is definitely an adjustment, and I love that they are playing this out on the show.
Kat asks Adena about the folks in the room.
Soon after that a friend grabs Adena and whisks her away into a lesbian black hole in the corner. At that point Leila, the party host, introduces herself to Kat. She tells Kat there’s a nice mix of fashion, art and music people all there because they heard Adena’s back in town. Then she says.
Oh my gosh, what a troll. It’s really disrespectful for her to try to plant a jealously seed in Kat’s head.
Kat’s getting clued in that her girlfriend’s popular, and she has probably banged half the room.
Later Adena thanks Kat for getting her to go, and Kat says it was nice to meet so many of her sexy, beautiful friends. Adena asks her why she’s saying “friends” like that.
For someone newly out, Kat made a perfect lesbian softball joke.
Adena dodges the question saying things like, “The past is in the past. It has no bearing on the future.” Then she changes the subject by having sex with her. Which is, fair enough, a great way to end a conversation.
I am a proponent of honesty. Kat says, “Open communication is good in relationships.” and I agree. I understand if there is something huge and personal you are not ready to share with someone, but the people you’ve been with in the past does affect your current relationship especially around discussions of safer sex. It should be treated in neutral, non-slut shaming way.
The events in your past up until the present do help form the person you are now, and there is nothing wrong with that even if you want to reinvent yourself. Dodging the question and not giving an honest answer of course gets Kat’s wheels turning.
Later Kat, Sutton and Jane are having a “what’s your number” chat.
I loved this discussion. Kat saying, “I don’t know what lesbians count as sex,” is such a real thing. People in general don’t know, and I love that they bring this up.
Kat tells them she doesn’t care what her number actually is, she just wants to know Adena better. And now that she won’t be forthcoming, she is starting to get suspicious.
Later, the ladies are out with Jane, and Kat bugs out when she sees Adena talking to a beautiful women she obviously knows. The women is a straight gallery owner, and Adena wants to know why Kat is being all weird about it.
Kat tells her she’s not a jealous or insecure person, but she is spinning out because Adena won’t be honest with her about her past. They get into a little argument about it at the bar, and Kat drops Coco’s name. Coco is the woman Adena left for Kat in season one. Eek! Bad move, Kat.
At home Adena explains that there is a lot on the line with her staying in the US to be with Kat, and she doesn’t want to scare her away with the implications of it all. She then tells Kat she loves her.
This felt a little early, but it’s still super cute. I like the way they resolved things at the end with an honest discussion. Kat didn’t get a number out of Adena yet. Adena said “a lot” and for now, that’s good enough for her.
- Hannah Gadsby – “Nanette” [Streaming]
This stand up performance popped up on my Netflix, and of course I clicked on it because I love lesbian standup. I was watching it at work and couldn’t really pay attention so I stopped 20 minutes in. A couple days later, I saw tweets popping up about how great Nanette was so I gave it another go, and, wow, I was blown away.
This performance is a powerful masterclass on homophobia, and you should all watch it right now.
But don’t take it from me, listen to Ellen Page:
Tonight starts FIVE NIGHTS of Steven Universe and I am so excited. I have many unanswered questions and I hope to get them all resolved this week. Plus my family will definitely be playing this:
Will you win the #HeartOfTheCrystalGems Bingo? 💗✨ pic.twitter.com/GnRy8fcCoj
— Cartoon Network (@cartoonnetwork) June 28, 2018
