The L Word: Generation Q
“Groundbreaking in its own right, Generation Q still struggles to integrate its original cast members into a modern show that’s more inclusive of real women.”
Title: The L Word: Generation Q
Episodes Reviewed: Season 1
Creators: Michele Abbott 👩🏼🇺🇸🌈, Ilene Chaiken 👩🏼🇺🇸🌈, and Kathy Greenberg 👩🏼🇺🇸🌈
Writers: Michele Abbott 👩🏼🇺🇸🌈 (7 eps), Ilene Chaiken 👩🏼🇺🇸🌈 (7 eps) Kathy Greenberg 👩🏼🇺🇸🌈 (7 eps), Thomas Page McBee 👨🏼🇺🇸🌈 (8 episodes), Francesca Butler 👩🏾🇺🇸 (7 eps), Allie Romano 👩🏼🇺🇸 (7 eps), Nancy C. Mejia 👩🏽🇺🇸 (6 eps), Marja- Lewis Ryan 👩🏼🇺🇸🌈 (2 eps), Melody Derloshon 👩🏼🇺🇸 (1 ep), Regina Y. Hicks 👩🏽🇺🇸 (1 ep), and Tatiana Suarez-Pico 👩🏽🇺🇸 (1 ep)
Reviewed by Laura Hindley 👩🏼🇬🇧🌈
Technical: 4.5/5
When The L Word first hit our screens in 2004, it felt nothing short of revolutionary. The show put nuanced queer women front and center—something drastically needed in an industry that had sensationalized LGBTQ characters for far too long.
The Showtime drama did have precedent, however. Pioneered by Bad Girls (1999-2006), the British series from ITV also focused on complex, engaging, and relatable lesbian and bisexual characters. Set in HMP Larkhall, a fictional women’s prison, Bad Girls consistently attracted high viewership, peaking at just shy of 9.5 million viewers for its highest rated episode, “The Leaving” (Season 2, Episode 9). Clearly, an appetite existed for LGBTQ content on mainstream television.
Enter The L Word. I admired the show’s casting choices, with several regular members identifying as queer in real life, and in the ten years since it concluded nothing had really filled the gaping hole left by Ilene Chaiken’s lesbian drama. Much has happened in that decade. Same-sex marriage was legalized in 23 countries, yet has a long way to go; Donald Trump became president of the United States; and the #MeToo movement sparked a reckoning for perpetrators of sexual assault. Among this rapid progress, The L Word: Generation Q comes at the perfect time.
The reboot features well-paced storylines that slowly burn across the season, keeping the viewer guessing: Will Bette and Dani hook up? Will Dani and Sophie make it down the aisle? Will Tina move back to L.A.? Why is Finley so self-destructive? This helps the audience warm to new characters and to navigate a younger, fresher, and more politically savvy L Word.
I can remember trawling the internet to find the original series when I was a teenager, watching it in the dead of night with headphones on so my family wouldn’t hear me. Fast-forward to today: I watched Generation Q seated comfortably on the sofa with my wife and two cats—perhaps, a reflection of how far the LGBTQ community has come since that time.
Gender: 5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
As the show aged, The L Word was increasingly criticized for its homogenous depiction of queer women. Generation Q had the opportunity to do better. And even though the reboot does continue to center women both onscreen and off, it sadly falls a little short on showcasing different types of women.
Picking up 11 years after the conclusion of the original series, three beloved characters are welcomed back: Bette (Jennifer Beals), Shane (Katherine Moennig), and Alice (Leisha Hailey). Bette is now running for mayor of Los Angeles, Shane has become wealthy enough to travel by private jet, and Alice has her own talk show. Adding to the list of successful and powerful women, Generation Q newcomers include the dynamic public relations consultant Dani (Arienne Mandi) and television producer Sophie (Rosanny Zayas).
But this aspirational representation of women in Los Angeles feels flattening, rather than empowering. In reality, the current mayor of LA, Eric Garcetti, recently highlighted gender inequality and had previously written that “the women and girls of our City have been measurably disadvantaged” in reference to an economic report released in 2015. This glaring dissonance between reality and what’s seen on Generation Q feels symptomatic of the series’ overarching struggle to integrate its original characters into a modern show that wants to be more inclusive and representative of real women.
Whenever series holdovers Bette, Shane, and Alice are at the forefront, socioeconomic relatability falls by the wayside. Throughout the season, Sophie does worry about paying for her wedding and Finley (Jacqueline Toboni), a friend of Sophie and Dani, is forced to crash at Shane’s lavish house to avoid her cramped living situation. However, both are fleeting conversational points, as opposed to startling revelations that could have made for purposeful discourse.
Despite homing in on the glamorous lives of its original cast, Generation Q does have some redeeming qualities that speak more to today’s generation. Within the first 30 seconds of the pilot, it breaks a sexual taboo by showcasing period sex—something most mainstream television programs, save for a memorable music video aptly titled “Period Sex” from The CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015-19)—have not dared to touch. We see armpit hair (lots of it) with Finley. Bette’s mayoral campaign is built on a platform of fixing the opioid epidemic, an issue that disproportionately impacts women. And despite Alice being the face of her own talk show, she battles male executives who take issue with her attempts to cover politics during interviews. As if the above range of issues weren’t enough, the first season of Generation Q also briefly tackles polyamory, as Alice enters into a throuple with her current partner and said partner’s ex-wife.
While the whirlwind tour of gender-related story arcs make it clear that Generation Q wants to comment on what matters to women, the show’s ties to characters visibly devised over 15 years ago gets in the way of making truly meaningful contributions to current conversations around the issues that affect women.
Race: 4.5/5
Most of the racial discourse in the original series focused on Bette, played by Jennifer Beals who is biracial but could pass for white. During one party scene in The L Word original, a character asks Bette’s white wife whether or not Bette is Black—a nod to Beals’ own personal experience of people being unsure of her racial identity.
Despite some of the issues Bette faced, including choosing a sperm donor for the child she planned to have with her aforementioned partner, Tina (Laurel Holloman), she enjoyed the socioeconomic status many women of color do not have access to. Since many biracial women, including Beals herself, experience alienation from both communities they belong to, it was disappointing that the writers chose to whitewash Bette’s life rather than to explore the complexities of living as a white-passing biracial Black woman.
Kit (Pam Grier), Bette’s sister, was the only other POC show regular in the original and was stereotyped as a recovering addict with several run-ins with the law. I was discouraged to learn Generation Q had not brought Kit back—Grier had a scheduling clash—and decided to kill her off. Sadly, Kit will never get the glow up she so clearly deserves.
But with race relations increasingly discussed in politics, it’s now empowering to see Bette running for office in Generation Q. Of the 127 women serving in the 116th US Congress, over one-third are women of colour. The reboot thankfully reflects these changing demographics among the House representatives they show onscreen.
In addition, Bette and Tina’s teenage daughter, Angelica (Jordan Hull), is a newcomer to the show (scenes of her as a baby in The L Word notwithstanding.) Borne by Tina who used sperm from a Black donor, and raised by both Tina and Bette, Angie is now grown. Interestingly, her biracial identity manifests in a different way than that of Bette’s.
This difference comes to the fore in Episode 3, “Lost Love”. Sick of being surrounded by white classmates in private school, Angie tells Bette she no longer wants to be a “ticked box” and asks to attend public school with its diverse student body. Bette eventually agrees, but with reluctance. In many ways, Angie not wanting to be fetishized contrasts with her mother’s acceptance of white society. In the same episode, after Angie gets expelled for punching a girl who calls Bette “a fucking slut”, Bette tells her teenage daughter, “the rules are different for you and you know it”. She adds that the only way to get around the system is to learn its constraints and to work within them.
In contrast, columnist Yolisa Mkele notes that “Generation Z are hyper aware of social injustices. They are the post-9/11, post-Great Recession generation and they don't want to make the same mistakes as their parents. I call them the self-correcting generation.” The dynamic between Bette and Angie illustrates that self-correction, and their frank conversations open up the show’s capacity to discuss more authentic Black narratives in future seasons.
Generation Q also introduces us to more Black perspectives through Bette’s love interest Felicity (Latarsha Rose) and Shane’s wife Quiara (Lex Scott Davis). Unfortunately, neither character is elevated to the same status of importance as show regulars, so we have yet to explore their experiences of being Black women in modern-day Los Angeles.
Two trans actors in Generation Q are also non-white. Brian Michael Smith plays Bette’s campaign manager Pierce, while Leo Sheng portrays Micah, a friend of Dani and Sophie. Casting POC trans characters on the show is a first. According to Trish Bendix of the LA Times, “Smith is black and Cheng is Chinese American, so both actors acknowledge they feel an added responsibility in creating visibility for trans men of color… [as] most trans men in film and television have been young and white.”
As the inclusion of Smith and Sheng illustrates, the reboot does a hell of a lot better in casting when compared to its predecessor. Chaiken, The L Word’s original creator and executive producer for the reboot, acknowledges the problems created by previous casting choices such as having Sarah Shahi, who is Iranian and Spanish, play the Mexican character Carmen de la Pica Morales. In Generation Q, we see Latina actors play Latina characters Dani and Sophie. On top of that, the reboot features Jillian Mercado, a Dominican actor, as an immigration lawyer and Sophie’s big sister. The reboot clearly tries to make amends for its past homogeneity, and in large part succeeds in catching up to conversations around race that are taking place today.
LGBTQ: 5/5
The original series got trans representation horribly wrong. It was a car crash, if we’re being honest. From Alice’s boyfriend who self-identified as a lesbian to the character assassination of Max, a trans-masculine character played by cis woman Daniela Sea, the writers failed the transgender community.
In an interview with BUILD Series shortly before Generation Q aired, executive producer Jennifer Beals said: “…making sure our cast was inclusive and diverse was very important, as was making sure trans actors played trans roles. You know, some trans actors are playing cis roles, so it’s exciting.”
Not only in casting, Generation Q rectifies this by adding Thomas Page McBee to its writers room. McBee uses his lived experience to help shape the narratives of Micah and Brian, the refreshing result being three-dimensional characters who are not solely defined by their struggles for equality. For example, the season follows Micah’s navigation of dating and hooking up in the age of Grindr, while Brian spearheads Bette’s popular mayoral campaign. We see that, just like everybody else, trans people are regular folks with normal lives.
However, while the reboot has built a bridge to the trans community, some argue the absence of trans women from the core cast is a step back. They do exist in smaller roles, such as Jordi (Sophie Giannamore), Angie’s best friend, and Tess (Jamie Clayton), the manager of Shane’s bar. But writer Mey Rude worries that “[without] trans women in the core cast [...] the show runs the risk of simply tokenizing Clayton and Giannamore.”
As for bisexual representation, it’s disappointing that Generation Q does not feature any characters from this community in its core cast. The writers had a really great opportunity to finally right some wrongs. Understanding that it’s difficult to hit every area of diversity and representation, it still would have been encouraging to see Generation Q address or rectify more of the errors made by its original series.
Bonus for Disability: +0.50
The previously mentioned Latin actor, Jillian Mercado, also happens to use a wheelchair. Diagnosed with spastic muscular dystrophy, Mercado makes her scripted TV debut on Generation Q in the recurring role of immigration attorney Maribel Suarez.
According to a recent study, only 3% of leading characters on mainstream television have a disability. Of those, nearly all are portrayed by non-disabled actors. Mercado’s casting is a win for authentic disability representation.
Mediaversity Grade: A 4.88/5
The original The L Word focused on the lives of almost entirely white, rich, and femme lesbians. Its portrayal of transgender and bisexual characters was clumsy at best. Thankfully, Generation Q both rights its predecessor’s wrongs and covers real-world issues far more realistically. Topics including divorce, parenting, menopause, periods, online dating, religion, and drug addiction are all ambitiously tackled within the eight episodes that make up Generation Q’s first season.
However, the inclusion of original fan favorites has proved to be a double-edged sword. It will be impossible to shake some of the show’s more problematic storylines if Bette, Alice, and Shane continue to feature. While their involvement is a huge nostalgic draw, the trio will forever be compared to their more diverse counterparts, inadvertently keeping Generation Q tied to dated material.
Will the series be given a chance to outgrow its past? Yes! Showtime just renewed and Season 2 will feature additional episodes, for a total of 10. The prospect is exciting, as there are several avenues the team can explore to broaden the lens through which we view Los Angeles’ LGBTQ community. In particular, I hope to see more authentic Black and bisexual narratives.
Like The L Word: Generation Q? Try these other shows with lesbian characters.
Gentleman Jack - Season 1
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