On this chapter of The Queerest Things I Watched Last Week, Anissa digs deeper into Grace’s past on Black Lighting; we’re reminded there is indeed a lesbian character named Alex on Supergirl; and Mel can’t stay away from Niko on Charmed.
- Black Lightning – Season 2 Episode 13 “The Book of Secrets: Chapter Three: Pillar of Fire” [Live]
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At the end of the previous episode, Anissa discovered Grace left her apartment, and she has no idea where she went. In this episode, Anissa is on the case and back at Grace’s apartment taking a closer look.
There she finds a photo of young Grace with an older couple.
And one of Grace’s pills.
As soon as I saw that I was like, “take that to Gambi to get analyzed!” And fortunately she does go to Gambi’s hideout to do research.
We also find out Gambi’s a Thundergrace shipper.
Anissa does give Gambi the pill to analyze hoping it’ll lead to some answers.
Then Gambi echos the hopes of the entire Thundergrace fandom.
Later Anissa is hanging out with Jennifer talking about Tobias stuff, when she asks her about Grace. Anissa tells her she’s really worried she’s in danger, and Jen is suddenly really harsh about it. She tells Anissa she’s probably projecting, and Grace may just not be into her anymore.
Damn, Jen.
Anissa heads back to Gambi’s basement to hear what he’s found on Grace. It’s a lot.
Gambi also had the lab results from testing the pill found at Grace’s apartment.
Let’s summarize:
- “Grace Choi” does not exist, and the person we know as Grace paid a lot of money to have her identity changed.
- Grace’s real name is Shay Li Wylde.
- She was abandoned as a child and spent her youth in foster homes.
- The picture is her with two of her foster parents who are now dead.
- She was kidnapped at 16 and sold into a child prostitution ring.
- After the ring was busted, Shay Li vanished and resurfaced later as Grace in Freeland.
- The pill is a custom mega dose version of medication used to treat schizophrenia.
- Anissa still wants to find her.
I hate this trope, y’all — everything pointing to big red flags telling you to back off, but really there is something else going on, and the person does need saving. I’m glad Anissia is still determined to find her, and she doesn’t seem dissuaded by this new news about Grace.
This still doesn’t explain the skin and eye color changing thing. We’ll have to keep waiting to find out what all that’s about.
- Good Trouble – Season 1 Episode 6 “Imposter” [Live]
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In this episode we got to learn more about Gael’s sister Jazmin. In a flashback we see Jazmin asking Gael’s help finding a lawyer to legally change her name.
Gael is sympathetic, but at the same time is giving Jazmin a, “why don’t you meet people halfway” attitude. Privately, he tells Callie he thinks she brings some of it on herself. Wow, Gael’s cis privilege is showing.
Gael enlists Callie’s help, but when she meets Jazmin, she tells her that she doesn’t need her to legally change her gender.
Jazmin explains she was getting harassed at a club and the cops were called. However, when they got there she was the one asked to leave, not her harassers. A cop grabbed her and when she pulled away he got mad and charged her with resisting arrest.
Callie says it is harder to legally change your gender when you have a felony conviction, but it’s not impossible. She’s happy to help her pro bono.
Meanwhile, in a different plot, Jazmin is working a catering gig at a party at Mariana and Gael’s work. There another catering co-worker asks her out, and that is going cute and well until their boss outwardly discriminates against Jazmin because she is transgender.
Gael immediately gets in the guy’s face while Jazmin tells him to let it go. Gael has finally seen a fraction of the shit Jazmin goes through regularly, and now he’s starting to get it. In the next scene you see the two of them meeting with Callie and her lawyer friend. They are going to sue the catering company. Yes, get that MFer!
After the show, Good Trouble Tweeted out this great video about transgender discrimination. This video is way better than my recap, and I strongly encourage you to watch it.
- Drunk History – Season 6 Episode 5 “Love” [Live]
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I was looking forward to this episode of Drunk History, because it covered the story behind the movie Dog Day Afternoon and John Wojtowicz & Elizabeth Eden. I haven’t seen the movie and I didn’t know anything about it.
John and Elizabeth were married and John started robbing banks because Elizabeth (played by the fabulous Trace Lysette) was transgender, and John needed to raise money to pay for her gender reassignment surgery.
One of the other historical figures they covered was Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer, the famous lesbian couple whose fight to get their marriage legally recognized went all the way to the Supreme Court and led to same-sex marriage being legal nationwide.
My family was lucky to have met Edie in real life, and a significant portion of a Keynote I gave at a conference covered her and her story. She’s also from Philly. I love Drunk History, and I couldn’t wait to see how they portrayed Edie and Thea on the show.
I did enjoy the segment overall; however, I was very disappointed that they did not have out lesbian and queer actors play the queer historical figures portrayed on the show.
Drunk History usually does an amazing job of casting actors with the same backgrounds of the real life people they are portraying.
For example Native American actors portraying the people involved in the Alcatraz occupation.
Disabled actors playing the participants of the Section 504 sit-ins of the 1970s that led to the first disability civil rights law in the US.
Out transgender actresses, Alexandra Grey and Trace Lysette doing amazing portrayals of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera during the Stonewall Riots.
This authenticity is so important, because Representation Matters. The producers of Drunk History seem to get this, and they usually execute these episodes with mindful and respectful casting.
This is why I felt betrayed by the show when they did not cast two lesbians to play Edie and Thea — two of the most historically significant lesbians in modern history.
Why is our community not getting fair treatment? It’s sending the message, “We’ll make sure we cast actors with the same backgrounds for everyone else except lesbians. Your community is not important.”
Of course, I went to Twitter to complain and one of the actresses responded.
I think Sugar Lyn and Alison Brie are great. I do not think negatively of them at all for the job they did playing Edie and Thea. But I have to say doubling down on “casting being on point” feels very dismissive.
If she is kind of coming out in her tweet, that is great! I’m glad they cast a queer actor to play a queer person, but overall there was not the same casting effort put into this segment as all of the others.
All I want is fair and equal treatment because seeing yourself matters, and being singled out hurts people.
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine – Season 6 Episode 6 “The Crime Scene” [Live]
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Rosa meets Jake at a crime scene with a haircut that is, um, interesting.
Oh! Rosa has a girlfriend named Jocelyn…if that is her real name.
Day two of the investigation, we get a little more info on Rosa and her girlfriend, and a new hairstyle.
As the investigation drags on into several days, we learn that Rosa has not spoken to her mother since she came out to her.
At the same time, Jake made a promise to the crime victim’s mom that he would find her son’s killer. Rosa, who is usually not emotionally involved with cases, feels herself drawn into this one, because the mom says she regrets being estranged from her son before he died.
This motivates her to break the ice with her mom and reach out to her. Her mom shows up at the station, and it looks like healing process is on its way.
I thought this was a sweet episode, and hopefully, we’ll meet Jocelyn in the future.
My parting gift is a collage of every one of Rosa’s hairstyles from the episode. You’re welcome!
- Big Mouth – Special “My Furry Valentine” [Streaming]
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Big Mouth dropped a special for Valentines Day. This show is pretty over-the-top inappropriate, but I love it. The special was all about Valentines Day, and all of the characters going through their own issues with it.
Jessi has been having a hard time accepting her mom leaving her dad for a woman since season one, but now she has started to come around.
That was by far one of the sweetest and most innocent scenes in the entire episode.
- Supergirl – Season 4 Episode 12 “Menagerie” [Live]
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Supergirl has a lesbian character on it, right? I think her name is Alex. Well, Alex actually got some plot in this Valentines Day themed episode.
Mind-wiped Alex is feeling down because she feels thrown off track with her personal life. She became director of the DEO, and things were going well. Then something happened, and it just stopped.
Don’t use “we,” Kara, because we at home certainly did not know about Alex dating a lot.
We all know it’s the mind-wiping that’s thrown Alex off course, but she thinks it’s work stuff.
It’s time for Alex to have a personal life again, and Kara wants to be her wing woman at a Valentines Day party Nia and her roommate are throwing.
I guess Alex may have been dating a lot because she bumps into one of her dates at Nia’s party, and she doesn’t even remember her.
Is it the mind wipe or everyone blurring together on Tinder?
Alex does a little chit chat with Becca about adoption stuff, and Alex is like me trying to remove myself from kid talk.
Meanwhile, Nia has been mourning her mother’s death and not feeling ready to go full-on Dreamer even though Brainy is ready to train her. But then, after the party, she’s asleep on the couch and dream-sees Supergirl getting attacked by a snake lady. I guess this is the thing that finally motivates her to go into superhero mode.
I absolutely LOVED seeing Nia in the super suit. I’ll be honest I squealed a little when she appeared on screen. Later, she tells Brainy she’s ready to start training.
Later, Kara and Alex and having sister time at Kara’s apartment, and Kara tells Alex she got that girl’s number from the party for her.
I’m glad they’ll be pushing play, because Alex’s life has definitely been on “pause” this entire season.
- Charmed – Season 1 Episode 12 “You’re Dead to Me” [Live]
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It looks like Mel can’t stay away from Niko even though we all know it’s never a good idea to mess with an alternative timeline.
Mel promises Maggie she’ll leave her alone, but it looks like she wasn’t being honest because later she meets up with Niko at their old coffee hang.
Mel’s pretending she’s there to talk to Niko about Jada possibly being in a cult, but she’s obviously weirded out by being in their usual coffee shop together again. Mel asks her why she picked the place, and she says something about it drew her in.
They get to talking and Niko says two years ago she woke up one day and felt something was missing. She changed her life and became a private investigator and now she’s much happier than when she was as a cop.
Mel does stuff like orders Niko’s favorite drink for her, and Niko says things like “you’re really easy to talk to.” Uh, oh, you’re wading into dangerous waters, Mel.
At one point Niko sees a scar on Mel’s shoulder and that seems to trigger a pre-spell memory.
That can’t be good.
For much of the rest of the episode, Mel is stuck in England with Harry to help him find his son. During that adventure, the truth comes out about Mel seeing Niko again.
At the very end of the episode, it looks like Harry has convinced Mel to stay away from her.
Niko seems to have other ideas about that scar though. I’m totally into this. I wonder is Jada is going to find out how much Mel has been hanging out with Niko.
Half of our CW shows are on pause this week, but I’m okay with a writing break before so many of our favorite shows come back in March.
