TV Shows – Lesbian Rabbit Hole

I started watching One Day at a Time like I start watching most TV Shows. Someone on social media, or a website I follow, recommended it because it had lesbian representation. It was also about a Hispanic family, and as Latin myself those things together were an automatic sale. But I never imagined how much I would get to love this show, how perfect it was, and how deeply seeing myself represented, the Hispanic part, not the gay part, would hit me.

Representation Matter. That is a sentence that I’ve heard a lot of times. To the point it may even lose some of its power. But it’s true. I don’t think there’s a way to describe how impactful it was to look at the screen and not only see myself. But I saw my mom, my grandmother, my brother. I had never seen that on TV.

I think the show is masterful beyond its representation of Cuban-American and Hispanic families. The humor, the sensitive tackling of so many sensitive topics, and above all, its ability to touch us, hit us at our core of our feelings, and make us cry as much as it makes us laugh make it a must watch show for anyone. But for me, particularly, I want to talk about the parts of myself I see in it, and that had made it even more powerful.

With their animated episode coming out this week, no better time to reflect on how much this show means.

I really have a lot to catch up on, when it comes to my liveblogs. A combination of being busy and being too overwhelmed by the emotions episode 7 made me feel, kept me from doing episode 7 properly and now episode 9 is almost here and I’m still two episodes behind on the liveblog.

In order to fix that, mostly because I’m a creature of habit and it gets on my nerves to not do things the same way I was doing them before, I’m going to try to do episode 7 and 8 this weekend. I’m not sure anyone wants to remember episode 7, I sure don’t at times, but It has to be done.

I’m going to try something new though, instead of doing a bunch of posts and flooding everyone dash I’m going to do a single post with all my comments for episode 7, and then my normal style liveblog for episode 8.

Putting it behind a cut, cause it may get long. I don’t think I will have anything new to add to what already has been said, but I just want an official record of my thoughts and feelings I can look back on.

The Bold Type – EPISODE 7 Liveblog after the cut.

I understand Jane’s reaction, I’m really anti-gun, but my circumstances are completely different.

I hate to sound like I’m using my tragic backstory or whatever, to justify my views. Above all I know that the situation in the United States is completely different to my experience in Colombia. That the there are historic reasons as well as circumstances that make the conversation about guns not black and white. Is a complex topic, that will evoke complex reactions.

By not making the episode about the larger conversation about gun regulation and instead choosing to frame it around the personal views an feelings of two particular characters, I can’t help but approach the subject in the same way. From my own personal point of view, and from how the actions of Jane and Sutton, two characters that at this point are like good friends, made me feel.

Now, in Colombia, if you have a gun there’s a 99.9% chance you are a bad guy. People can carry guns if they have a carry permit for it, but that’s extremely rare. So more often than not if there’s someone with a gun, they belong to a gang or are a criminal in some way.

I love my country so much, and we’ve come a long way since our worst days. But I still live in a city, in a neighborhood, that can be insecure and has gangs. The first time I saw a gun pointed in my direction I was 8 years old, and I can almost feel the fear I felt then right now just thinking about it. Because of that, and other similar experiences that there’s no point in sharing I’m both terrified of guns and absolutely against them.

That means, that from the start, I was ready to side with Jane. I understand where she was coming from. Being shocked, wanting the gun out of her apartment. What I don’t share was the way she expressed those things at some points.

It makes me sad, because I actually love Jane. And I know she can be compassionate and understanding, they have shown it to us. But more often than not this season the show has resorted to making her excessively judgmental and set in her ideas, in order to move the plot. I’m not saying is not in character, it is. But I can see how this puts people off and makes some people dislike her.

This is so important, because it tells us that things since we last saw Kat and Adena are not going well. Understandably, after what happened. There’s tension, there’s distance. They didn’t break up but things are not good, and I think Kat is afraid at this point that she ruined their relationship.

I’m echoing other people’s thoughts here. But as much as this open relationship is Adena’s idea, as much as she brings it up and establishes the rules. It looks clear to me in her body language that she is doing this because she feels she has to, that it’s the way to save their relationship. But she is not comfortable with it. She is willing to put herself in a situation she knows she won’t enjoy because she thinks is what is best for Kat and what will allow them to stay together and keep building their relationship.

It’s so weird to see a relationship that at one point was based in communication. To be suffering from lack of it. Neither Kat nor Adena seem to be fully open about what they are thinking and feeling in this situation. I love Adena, and I know she is doing what she thinks is best, but she is really hurting herself and the relationship in this attempt to protect it.

That said, now I think this was done on purpose by the writers, this open relationship was set to fail from the start. I still wish we had gotten a little bit more of Adena’s perspective. A little bit more of her feelings about the kiss, that clearly hurt her. How and why was she willing to move past it. We may see that brought up in a later episode, but wish we had seen it.

I think a couple lines could have helped. Something like “I was really hurt about what happened, but after thinking a lot about it I’ve decided I want to try to move past it. But I still think this is something you need to explore more” I don’t know. I’m not a TV writer. Maybe even in the scene with Kat, Sutton and Jane. Kat telling them that things are complicated but Adena told her they could work to move past her cheating. I don’t know.

And now, Kat also looks uncomfortable, sad. I think at this point she is afraid of being dumped at any minute.

She does feel guilty about the kiss, and I think she doesn’t want to hurt Adena more. She is surprised because she didn’t expect Adena to take that approach, but she does seem to take her at face value and accepts that this is what Adena wants and thinks is best.

I still don’t know if she does want to do it, she seems uncomfortable at first. But then she does go through with it. I doubt she would if she really didn’t want to.

This scene confuses me though. This is right after lunch we assume, Kat says Adena said we should do this, Adena thinks this or that. And then when Jane asks if she is doing it for Adena, she say yes. But It’s so fast and I don’t really get why Kat makes this decision, what was her thought process. She could have had a longer conversation with her friends about this, but it’s just a couple lines, she could have a longer conversation with Adena telling her she has decided she will try it and why.

Is she doing this because Adena said she should do it so she thinks she must be right? Is she doing it because she is sexually curious and things exploring that side of her within the rules Adena gave her will help her get it out of her system and make their relationship stronger? I don’t know. I wish we had gotten more from Kat’s thought process to get to this decision.

I’m assuming Kat does believe Adena when she says she is ok with this, she has no reason to think otherwise. She is curious and she was willing to repress that curiosity for Adena after the cheating, which she knows was a mistake. But now that she has an opening to explore that, the chance is too interesting to pass up. But I just wish we had more information.

I actually didn’t have a problem with Sutton having a gun. What she said it’s true, she comes from a different place, different circumstances, she is responsible about it. I understand that. And I actually liked getting to know more about her. But there were moments like this, or when she said that “Mass shootings have nothing to do with my shotgun” where it just didn’t sound like the Sutton Brady I know.

Something that bothers me here, is that a lot of Jane’s growth seems to be erased. Her arc this season is about learning and growing so she can come back to Scarlet. In the first episodes she got in trouble because she insisted on the fact it wasn’t right to condemn someone instead of sharing all the facts. Episode 6 she gave this speech about how the truth is what is important when writing a story.

We were shown that her time freelancing, struggling, has helped her grow as a journalist and as a person. But this scene looks just like something out of Season 1 episode 1. With the pushing by Jacqueline to be able to take on the story in an appropriate way, with the need to please Jacqueline. I don’t know, it seems to me like this Jane should be past this after season and a half.

She should be able to turn in a good, not biased article without Jacqueline pointing it out to her. And I think that’s more of a writing flaw. I know this set up is useful to frame issues on the episodes, but they need to find a way to make that without making Jane’s part of it repetitive, show the growth we know she has had in the way she approaches her job and find other ways to move the plot along.

Adena looks so good, I just want to stare at this for a second. It’s also would have been a perfect opportunity to show Adena putting on her Hijab to leave the house. A small detail that would mean a lot.

I’m also going to stare at this. Enjoy this little moment they had. The kiss was great. the bye love was great. In this scene it does look like Adena is genuinely ok with the open relationship thing. It does. But I still can’t buy it.

I thought a lot, if I was projecting my feelings onto Adena. I do identify with her the most, so it could easily happen. And yes, I personally wouldn’t be able to do an OR for myself. But I am able to put my feelings aside and realize that an open relationship is a perfectly valid option.

I think i said several times before the kiss happened that i would be OK with it. I think it would be great to see a well developed open relationship on screen. I just can’t see how Adena moved from the sadness at the end of episode 6, the body language at the start of this episode, to this apparently a 100% ok with it. I may be wrong, like episode 9 and 10 may prove me wrong, but at this point I really can’t believe she is ok with it, even if she thinks is what needs to happen.

I was getting a little too much Pinstripe this episode. And i think it was unnecessary. Jane has shown that she is capable of stepping back and looking at things from another perspective. She may react harshly and judgemental at first, but she does get around to exploring other points of views. And I think with her best friends she would even be more open to take a minute and listen to them. She did it with Kat and their conversation about white privilege, she did it with Ben and religion. She can do it on her own, and the fact she needs pinstripe to point this things to her is a little unnecessary.

Like, I get they may be building to something with them and they are doing this slow friendship build up…I guess I just don’t care about it.

Just so you all know, I skipped that whole scene. You know which one. Watching it once was more than enough. And you know what is sad. Cause there were little moments that were funny and i could have enjoyed. Like the fact Kat is so bad and shy when flirting with women, he face of panic at being told she needs to dominate, her “be gentle with me”, canon evidence Adena can be a soft top 😛

But i just couldn’t enjoy it. I don’t think I have ever hated a scene so much in my life. At first i expected Kat to walk away from it, then when it was clear it was gonna happen I assumed they would show a kiss at most and then cut away, but now, they showed the whole thing in bright colors, HD definition, and I was so mad.

If i step back, my rational self is like. it’s ground breaking that they showed a wlw scene like that on tv, it’s amazing that the show had an awkward sex scene, that’s fun. But the fact it was between Kat and some rando is something I can’t get past. And I know that may be my own personal bias, but I didn’t enjoy any of the scenes of Kat with other women, I just can’t.

And I know the show has no obligation to cater to me, but I don’t see why they couldn’t do this type of scenes with Kadena instead. A ship that a lot of people are invested on. And it was that scene specifically what made me so angry, other things had me angry too, but my rational self could still control it. But not with that sex scene.

I want to erase it from my brain forever.

I know the Bold Type tends to wrap this kind of stories in one episode, resolve the conflict. But in this case it felt weird. It was like forget about guns it wasn’t about that at all, it was about control, and magically fixed the issue.

I think I understand where Kat is coming from. She does want to share everything with Adena, to feel closer to her. There is no bad faith on her part, she wants to re-establish that bond they had before the cheating happened and made things complicated. There is no doubt in my mind Kat loves Adena, that she is not doing things to hurt her on purpose, but I do think she is hurting her.

Right after Adena says she can handle it, Kat looks like this. Like she is not sure if she should tell her, if Adena means it. But after a second she dismisses it and does it anyway. Kat is not malicious in any sense, but she does have a problem focusing on other people’s emotions sometimes. The fact Adena is keeping a brave face, doesn’t help.

I could be imaging things, but Adena’s eyes look sad in this picture. She is smiling, because part of her is happy to share this whit Kat, to have this moment. But she is also sad.