The L Word on Rewind: Season 6 Recaps # 1

Somewhere Eugene O'Neill and the entire Tyrone family are turning in their collective graves. In the tradition of appropriating great art -- or at least titles from great works of art -- Ilene Chaiken and the Gang kicked off The L Word's Sixth and final season with the aptly titled "Long Night's Journey Into Day," considering I think I went through menopause during my journey with the West Hollywood women we've come to know, love, hate and lust after.

Before I dive into recapping the L Word's eight-episode kiss goodbye -- a disclaimer of sorts. First, I apologize since these are a little late. They'll be out bright and early -- or at least by Wednesday of next week.

Now here's the disclaimer. Until now, I have been an unabashed, tireless and mostly forgiving L Word aficionado. That said, I concede that Ahab is done for and the show has indeed jumped the Great White. However, I will continue to ooh and ah over the eye candy cast and likely continue to let out the occasional, "Ooh damn, that's hot," during the sex scenes.

If you're not an  L Word junkie who's YouTubed "Long Night's..." prologue dozens of times, or if you've been living on an L Word free deserted island, JENNY SCHECTER is DEAD. Cue police cars, sirens, and a hot female detective. No, you're not watching Law and Order: SVU. It's The L Word and Lucy Lawless is an alternate Xena-free universe. And looking very much like Rachel Shelley's doppelganger!

A beat cop tells Lawless' hot detective he found several women a little girl and just a few bottles of wine in the house. Ms. Lawless arrives to find our hapless bunch sporting a set of Porter manse white terrycloth robes. Lawless, looking for the HOMO-Owner, introduces herself to Bette with a firm, "I'm Sgt. Mary Beth Duffy." But since Bette's the homeowner and no one can resist the Beals' heart-rending half-smile / half-cry, Duffy tosses in a "What a beautiful family you have." Gotta love a detective who can flirt on the job.

Meanwhile, a body is enroute from that den of inequity -- ie.  den of much skinny dipping and Shane's first-season pool fucking -- the Porter pool. Rather than take the long way round the back yard, paramedics wheel a lifeless Jenny through the living room where Tina shields Angelica from the ghastly sight while Kit, Shane, Alice and Helena engage in a game of "Hear, See and Speak no Evil." Cue Law and Order "Gung, gung" - forgive me. I can't find the right onomatopoeia. Anyway, don't cue that. Cue that fucking Betty song for eight more episodes.

"Girls in white dresses..." Time for one last pee break and cocktail top-off.

Now, welcome to The L Word time machine. Since the Season 5 finale was so riveting, we are treated to 10 more minutes of it, this time from a slightly varied perspective. Let's call it the L Word's Rashomon moment. Here, we find out once again that the ever-lovable horn dog with bad judgment, Shane, kills her pain over Molly by engaging in public cunnilingus with Jenny's erstwhile gf Niki Stevens.  Also, the straight white male nerds who run Hollywood are looking to change the ending of Lez Girls by send Jenny - I mean Jesse - running back into the protective arms of Tim - I mean Jim. 

"It's the man that does this shit," Kit chimes in, in all of her amazing Pam Grierness (And that quote might be slightly paraphrased since I was furiously scribbling notes while trying to chat with a friend).

Oh hell. I have a better idea than those studio bozos...and apparently, so does Chaiken and Co. Let's just kill Jenny off, she is in fact a transgressive woman prone to running around in her lingerie, stripping for scads of screaming men,  adopting a pseudonym and posing as a loving dog owner to blackmail a Curve writer who had a bone to pick with her first novel and -gasp - cheating on her man with a woman. Yep. She's dead.

Cut to last season and Jenny's saying "You broke my heart," to Niki, I mean Shane, I mean Niki, I mean. Yeah. It's Shane. A French Connection / Bourne Identity style chase scene ensues through the streets of LA and the realism is stunning. It's rear screen projection, the likes of which haven't been seen since Hitchcock. Shane's hair is fabulously feathered and flying out the window ala Charlie's Angel while she and Niki, in separate vehicles, text madly while in Jenny's hot pursuit. This shit is in no way realistic and I'll tell you why. LA cops are bitches who've nailed me for the most ridiculous crap. These three would never make it through a chase like this ticket free.

Back at Alice's abode, something is up with her and Tasha and Good God is it annoying. Exhibiting slight signs of  would-be cheater's remorse for her Vespa ride and near kiss with Melanie Lynsky's cutie pie fashion designer in the finale, Alice and Tasha are on the verge of a break-up...or else they're on the verge of the most  boring break-up then make-up fight I've ever been privvy to.

Back at the Porter mini-manse, Bette and Tina -- both looking stunning and better than ever by the way -- are in the throws of a pseudo discussion about Shane's fidelity issues, which is a slippery slope for this pair that will haunt this episode like Rosebud until the dénouement -- while also learning from their tween babysitter that Baby Ange has developed quite a fever. As an aside, I wonder how much West Hollywood babysitters make? I might be looking some supplemental cash and hanging around Bette's art watching Damages sounds like an easy way to make a buck.

Just a hop, skip, skinny dipping / soon-to-be-murder-scene pool and a fence away, Shane and Niki are feeding Jenny's out-of-control ego, at turns begging her for forgiveness. An impassioned speech ensues. Shane's laying it all on the line promising the world to Jenny if she'll just forgive her. Finally, in an attempt to mollify Jenny, Shane blames her reprehensible act on being heartbroken over Molly. Meanwhile, Niki's just young and stupid enough to remain locked into her Blackberry between spurts of "I'm so sorrys." "Poor Tiffy" or "Tippy" she exclaims following a text. Here's where I fully expect Tippi Hedren to turn up with a flock of apocalyptic birds to lift these three up and off to an island.

"I've been upset about Molly," Shane cops, adding that Molly gave her hope and inspired her, opening up the door for Jenny to deliver the most inspired line of this episode. "She inspired you to fuck my girlfriend on the balustrade of Yamashiro?" Jenny screams!

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"She only ate me out," Niki interjects... because, you know, oral sex isn't at all intimate.

Back to Alice and Tasha still dispassionately arguing. At some point Alice has told Tasha she considered breaking up but she changed her mind. Now, Tasha did not take very kindly to it considering Shane was the genius who encouraged Alice to dip her toes in other Lesbo waters.

Jenny has tossed and broken a perfectly good lamp and shouted at Shane and Niki to "Get the fuck out." Heartbroken, Niki offers to put Shane up at her room at Chateau Marmont -- which is incidentally where Lindsay Lohan lived and led her reign of terror on the wait staff for an entire year.

Thinking better of the invite, Shane raps on the Porter / Kennard door while the still impeccably decked out babes are doting over a hot and wheezing Baby A. Bette and Shane engage in a little heart to heart during which Shane reveals her love for Molly, adding that she was faithful to Molly -- for the two and half weeks they actually dated. This admission makes Bette let out a guffaw. Not far enough out of ear shot Tina pointedly queries, "How hard is it to be faithful to someone you're in love with?"

Uh oh... all hell is going to break loose in the Portard household before the season is out... And a little thing called "Next week on The L Word," tells me it's going to be in the form of Elizabeth Berkley.

Our gorgeous Yale Grad Bette is not doling out great advice tonight. As she coddles Shane with her big browns, she instructs Tina to go ahead and give Lez Girls' billionaire investor William Halsey a 2 a.m. call. At least now we know it's not Hillary Clinton making that 2 a.m. call.  As you can surmise, William is none to happy to hear from Tina one REM cycle into his night. Gobsmacked that he didn't appreciate the wake up call, Tina swirls around and says to Shane, "So you want to sleep on our couch?" Here's a question? Credit cards? Nothing? Shane's got nothing? Mind you, she is running around with some clothes in a Whole Foods bag looking like a hippy homeless person but still...

It feels like hours into "Long Night's" and finally a little levity. Kit and Helena, the new Queens of She-Bar are tossing around ideas for a name for their little lesbian club. They settle on combining they're names, akin to Bette and Tina's half-second thought to name a baby Portard. Kelena? No...that's not it. "PeaPorter?" No...you're still cold. Kit / Helena = "Hit." And Hit club is born.

We're back to Bette / Tina / Shane and the fidelity conundrum. Bette's a cheater. It's in her DNA and Tina just resorts to internet sex with anonymous freeper men.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling like the woman in Airplane who hangs herself listening to Robert Hays wax on for hours, especially since we turn back to Tash and Alice in the most boring break-up ever! Where's the begging, screaming, crying, binge drinking and desperate, last-chance fucking? Ugg. This is like nails on a chalkboard listening to everyone rehash the same views on fidelity that popped up during that fateful game of "I never," on the Pink Ride. Yep, Truth or Dare would have been less trouble.

Cue another chase scene, this time with Alice in a mini-Cooper chasing Tasha on her motorcycle. This chase scene is going to be so much more like the Italian Job or something really fun and Euro.

Back to the doting mamas. Bette, the Yale Grad -- did I mention that already? --who can make academics' hearts melt with her art history speak, can't figure out how to work a digital ear thermometer. She gets a reading of 104 from lil' Angie, who apparently is on the verge of spontaneously combusting. And it's off to Cedars Sinai or UCLA or some other lovely emergency room...you know...because everyone in LA has such great health coverage.

There's a knock at Jenny's door and before she could huff and puff and blow the house down, Jenny -- sporting a stunning bra and slip ensemble -- greets Molly at the door.

Molly has discovered that her mama Cybill Shepherd -- I mean Phyllis -- kicked the shit out of Shane with highly charged academic verbiage.

"My mother's a raging bitch and she destroys anything that gets in her way," Molly explains to Jenny. "I'm not going to let her do that to the woman I love."

Inherently, being so much like that "vagina wig" she loves to toss around, Jenny seizes the opportunity to squeeze the life out of Molly's heart. Lil lunatic Jenny tells Molly that Niki and Shane were "Fucking around on the Pink Ride." Curiously, Jenny ascertained that Niki and Shane had been at the showers together on the ride, but she informs Molly that Niki returned and "She wasn't wet." Well, that does not bode well for Shane's prowess...I'm just saying.

Blah, blah, Molly gives Jenny a jacket for Shane and there's a letter in the pocket. Jenny being Jenny reads the letter and promptly stows the jacket, letter and all, away in her secret closet attic crawl space where I'm guessing she sometimes re-enacts the Flowers in the Attic books with her Barbie dolls and paper cut outs of her ex lovers.

Politics and great art merge in this next scene in which Bette berates a minimum-wage ER desk clerk for calling the two moms out for not having properly filled out the paperwork.  Bette delivers A fiery, hot political speech that includes a call for rights for same-sex couples and plenty of expletives including a total of four "fucks," or some derivative. She caps it off nicely by calling the hapless woman a "fucking bureaucratic maggot," and frankly now I don't know what happens because Jennifer Beals + expletives + political jargon, turns me on and I can't think.

Homeless-for-a-night Shane runs into Niki and her Hollywood party-girl crowd at a trendy coffee shop. Still clutching her Whole Foods bag -- nice product placement -- Shane rebuffs Niki's attempts to flirt, until the dumbass actress receives a text or an IM or a Facebook message from Jenny, informing her that she'd like to see her.

"Do you think she loves me?" Jenny asks. Oh Lord... Can she please be back for a guest stint on South of Nowhere and can that come back for another season? Please?

Sparing us the entire waiting period in the ER, although this episode has thus far felt like an overnight stint waiting in a germ-infested emergency room, we're back to Bette and Tina sharing a moment on either side of Angelica, who's out of the hospital and strapped in her car seat ready to roll. Apparently Bette misread the thermometer -- one of the more touching and sweet moments of an episode laden with cynicism.

Chase scene number two has ended as Alice follows Tash up the walkway to an unfamiliar house. And who could possibly be lurking behind Tash's Mystery Date door? Why, it's her best bud, never to be seen again after the fall out for her lack of Latina-ness.  It's Papi. Poor Janina Gavankar. It's not her fault the show's creators cast an uber-feminine woman of Indian and Dutch descent as a bad-ass Latina lothario.  

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Earning her stalker stripes, Alice follows Tash upstairs only to discover that Papi's nightly booty call is none other than a dusted-off-after-four-seasons Guin Turner as Gaby Devaux.  Alice and Gaby engage in some age-appropriate sniping and Alice insults Papi's Virgin of Guadalupe -- which is just piss-poor writing because if Alice doesn't love the kitsch in the Virgin of Guadalupe then she's got no right being a pop culture media figure.

If the adolescent retorts flying between Alice and her ex piece Gaby weren't Beavis and Butthead enough, animal sex sounds begin to emanate from Papi's boudoir, causing Alice and Tash to giggle like 12-year-old boys. Leave it to the L Word to use sex noise as a unifying ploy. At any rate, it gets the troubled couple out of Papi's and back home together. Nice literary device kids! (Some of you may notice I've begun smushing these scenes together. It's too much to painstakingly try to relive this episode in real time).

Cut to Niki banging down Jenny's door and they're snogging away half naked before they even get to the bedroom -- although Jenny's been in her bra and slip for the past 12 hours or however long this episode has been dragging on. Insipid Niki mutters a load of crap about how much she loves Jenny... blah, blah. I'm not listening because her voice annoys me and I'm hoping a sex scene will snap me out of the coma I've slipped into.

Once-upon-a-masochist Jenny turns the tables, tops Niki and --well there's no delicate way to put it -- "grudge fucks" the budding starlet. And it's hot! At least the girls at the Falcon screening in Hollywood whooped and hollered.

The long ride home from the ER is nearly over for Bette and Tina who're in their driveway discussing commitment and fidelity. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. For those of you who bitched over the dearth of committed, monotonous - I mean monogamous - couples on the show once Bette shtooped the plumber -- I mean carpenter -- here you have it. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

For the nth time this evening, the subject of cheating arises and Bette, flushed with warmth and love for her little family, crosses her heart and hopes to die before telling Tina, " I will never cheat on you again." It didn't take film school for me to decipher this one. Cheating will become a major plot point later in the season. Wink and nudge.

Homeless-for-a-day Shane ends up doing shooters with Helena at Hit club and then passing out in a hanging chair. Not a sex swing mind you, just a swinging chair.  All said, that's not an entirely bad way to end the night.

Back to T and A and Tasha declares she's sleeping on the fold-out sofa sans Alice. But Alice, being Leisha Hailey and so damned charming and adorable, worms her way into Tash's makeshift bed, where Tasha reiterates that sex is not on the menu. The conversation devolves into the question of couples' therapy, and this is where Tash should have put out. I know the threat of therapy always makes me bone up and be a better woman.

It turns out Hit club is not Shane's last stop on her hobo odyssey. "Auntie Kit" pours the 78-pound waif onto her couch and provides some home-spun Pam Grier style therapy. "Ooh girl, you did some damage," Kit says. "You let all your women go. You've got to fight for the friendship (with Jenny)" And like the soothsayer that she is adds, "You'll fight to the death."

It's the morning after and the hangover from this episode is just about setting in but first: Niki and Jenny appear peacefully sexed out in Jenny's bed. "I love you so much," Niki says. Too clueless to leave it at that, Niki adds that it was like totally sweet when you said I broke you're heart. Spelling it out for Niki that it was Shane who's the heartstomper takes at least three minutes. Like Chandler to Joey, I just want to scream at the set "Get there faster" Niki.

But tart-tongued Jenny gets her digs in. "Your'e nothing but a self-absorbed, self-indulgent little brat," to which I would add, pot / kettle and "Get their faster Jenny!" Finally, once every ounce of suspense or even interest in the story has been squeezed out of the story, Jenny says "I wasn't talking about you darling." Then she gathers Niki's sex clothes and tosses her out on the streets of Weho to do the walk of shame. But don't worry Niki...there are plenty of one-night stands already out there waltzing home with their bras in their pockets.

Suddenly, we're at the Planet for a lively brunch of cutting remarks and snide glances. Hung over and sporting her homeless clothes Shane attempts to approach Jenny to no avail. The crew divides between tables and it's Bette, Alice, Helena and Shane at one and Jenny, Tasha and Tina at the other. I know which table I'd rather sip Bloody Marys at!

Ever the voice of reason Kit sizes up the fuckery happening at her lil' eatery and says "You've got to be kidding!" Thanks for taking the words out of our mouths Kit. Stay tuned to see what shenanigans this lovable bunch will get up to next time!