Sunday, March 22, 2009

Who Googled "Who Killed Jenny"?

I* did!

Why? Because I was left so speechless at the end of the "season" finale--in quotes because can we really even call that vaguely related hodgepodge of plotless schlock a "season"?--that I turned to the words of others to help numb my plotless schlock-induced pain.

Below, some excerpts from a particularly poignant sister-blog (yes, I said sister-blog), http://theroadbeststraddled.blogspot.com:

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I better recap this excellent slice of television STAT before AfterEllen wakes up.
The most telling part of this whole she-bang is the ominous "Jenny Schecter 2002-2008" graphic that concludes the program. Not only does it imply that Mia looks hella old for a 6-year-old, it also serves to remind us that life begins and ends in the hands of our Creator, the Lord Above, Her Majesty Chief Alaskan Protection Community Coordinator Princess of the Lesbian Universe of All Peoples. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

Because you are G-d, Ilene, and Jenny is one of your little creations, she did not exist before you took a rib out of every homosexual Showtime subscriber in the universe, shoved it up your ass, took it out, made it pretty, adorned it in ripped fishnets and Converse shoes, mussed up its hair and declared, "let us make woman in my image, after my likeness, and let her have dominion over all the manatees in the aquarium, and over the DirectTV dishes in the air, and over the mangina of Moira and the buoyantly fake breasts of Nikki, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth ... and Ilene saw everything that she had made and, behold, it was very good."
++

It is moments like this that remind us of the fragility of life [span of Ilene's teevee characters]
... that force reflection [e.g., Why do we watch this show again?]
... upon the person lost [and how silly it is that she IS "being lost." Besides, Jenny & her entrails already played the LOST game in Season One. If I wanted to watch things getting lost, I'd watch that show LOST.]
Who was Jenny Schecter? [A MAN, BABY!]

We knew her as so many things [because on this show, personalities change like the seasons. Although ... the seasons themselves actually never change. I want Christmas! I want a Christmas Special! Papi carves the turkey!]
++

Well, let's fill up our concave souls together with a warm cup of "Over It." Time for an OVER IT party!


Kate
: "I can't see foresee anybody killing anyone on this show ... but [throws arms in the air] there is that twist to it now, something has to happen ... [Shane]'s really kinda given up a lot of herself."
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R-Shelly: "What's [Jenny] gonna do this week, and who's she gonna say the wrong thing to? ... Is Helena capable of murder? I don't think so. Are ANY of these characters capable of murder?"
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Mia Kirshner: "Every year I sort of had to take on a different character for Jenny because she's so radically different every season ... it's hard to understand why Jenny did the things she did, because the things she did ... were amoral."
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Leisha: "[Alice and Jenny] have always had their differences but this [season it's] a thing where ... it's ... a real thing? ... it's not funny."
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Rose-Ro asks - "Who would really kill Jenny? ... I don't think anyone in the cast would kill Jenny ... maybe accidentally? ... like a fight on a rooftop or something?" [laughs]
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LuH: "It's hard to understand why Jenny's behaving a certain way ... Well, it is The L Word, so it's lots of fantasy."
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J-Beals
: "I don't think any one of them could premeditate a murder, certainly not. But ... [laughs, over it.] Who knows?"
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Kit: That's my baby girl!
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"I just think it's funny that you hired me for this job. I'm actually a kinda groovy person in real life, and you're paying me a good salary to "act" and every year I get a free trip to Vancouver, where I can hike with the tree fairies and make music. Sweet deal you guys! Thanks! Hahaha."
++
You guys ! I AM SO EXCITANT, and I just can't hide it, ABOUT SHENNY!!!! It's the best thing since Dana & Alice! OMG, that's the curse. Date your best friend, get KILLED! Maybe Ilene has issues about this specifically?
++


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I gotta say, it's kind of nice to have my Sunday nights back.




*Hi. I'm Naomi's sister Hannah's girlfriend Ali.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The L Word 6.8 Incites Insanity


In light of Q's theme, I should be writing a paper right now. It's due tomorrow and I've barely started (but it's due at 4 p.m. so I think I'm ok). Instead I will blog.

There was so much that was disappointing about the last episode of The L Word that I don't even know where to start. I guess most disappointing of all was that the episode itself was not that disappointing - the entire 6th season was such a letdown and so horrendously awful that it was impossible to really be surprised. Given the season it was capping off, I didn't necessarily mind the finale itself all that much. That being said, the entire final season was essentially wasted to construct bizarre and vaguely out of character story lines to provide almost all of the major characters with a motive for killing Jenny. And for what? To not answer the question of who killed her! To set us up for this Alice spin-off, apparently entitled "The Farm," which sounds significantly worse than The L Word itself and will not be capitalizing on The L Word's fan base given how much the final season of The L Word alienated and embittered its viewers, even though Alice was made of all kinds of awesome in the last episode (the last few, I guess although she maybe should have picked up on the Jamie stuff earlier?). Anyway, in an effort to try to capture our immediate reactions to The L Word finale, Leesh, Funnel Warrior, and I decided to immediately enter a group gchat with each other to discuss. The following is a (very slightly edited edition of) what resulted:

[Lies, blogger won't let me copy and paste. See F.W.'s comment below for a full text of our chat.]

If you can follow that conversation at all then you are an incredibly gifted human being. In re-evaluating it is hard for me to navigate and I was a participant in the initial conversation.

In the end, the primary result of this conversation was that Funnel Warrior and I decided that we should create a list of minor/major characters from L Word's past and write blog posts as them a) as if they were recording their video on the Bette/Tina tribute video, and b) their reaction to their interactions with the L Word ladies. The list is pretty lengthy but it is obviously ongoing. I think I'll save further discussion of this for my next post though...

Let the discussion/complaining/criticizing begin

Even though I should be studying for my exam tomorrow, I realized I could initiate this blog so we can have a forum to complain about how much the L word series finale disappointed us all (or satisfied us...doubtful). Because my mind starts to drift away from figuring out how to write computer programs to parse information from genbank files (as you can probably imagine this happens quite easily) and focuses on how terrible that last episode was and even more frustrating, how fabulous it could have been, I am just gonna dive into it the direction I want to go...  

So, I believe we should start utilizing this space dreamed up by N and Leesh, to discuss the failures, but also dream up fabulous ideas of how it could have been.  I of course plan to use these brilliant ideas, in collaboration with N, to create the most fun murder mystery party EVER! Fair warning: I might steal your ideas after belittling them and then claim that they come from a general base of murder mystery party writing knowledge.

Here goes some complaining in the format of a numbered list:
1. why in the world don't we know how Jenny died? did she forget how to swim? it definitely didn't look like she hit her head.  she was in the pool right? are we supposed to assume that someone pushed her in the pool and held her under? are we supposed to assume it was Alice from the shifty eyes and the upcoming Alice-in-prison spinoff? why, after waiting an entire season to see how Jenny dies, do I still have all of these questions?
2. why would they ruin Shane's character in the last season? i really liked having a few consistent characters.  Shane getting together with Jenny RUINED MY LIFE.
3. what was the point of the whole Jenny thinking she saw Bette going down on Kelly business if it never went anywhere? just to give Bette a motive? but now Kit "knows" too. so does Kit die next? (N, I hope you are paying attention...ridiculous motive idea.)

Okay, I feel like that is enough for now, even though there is so much more... So respond, add, contribute.  And I will start thinking about what should have happened, what could have happened to make a truly satisfying series finale. And after we all get our ideas out there, then maybe we can make a parody like the one with the heavy women and the wigs that takes place in Madison (The Lder Word), except MUCH MUCH MUCH better. and without wigs.