The L Word Finale: Reaction

The finale of The L Word should have had me crying, but instead I felt totally apathetic. I wanted to know who killed Jenny, but when it became clear that they weren't going to tell us, I was surprisingly disengaged. All in all, none of the open plot lines were resolved, which was very frustrating. This last season was a complete failure, in my opinion, even worse than the previous one.


Who Killed Jenny: Both Tina and Bette had opportunity. I don't think anyone else did, but correct me if I'm wrong. Of the two, I don't think Tina could kill. Bette possibly could, but the threat from Jenny didn't seem adequate to make her kill. It would have been more convincing if they'd built up the threat more gradually instead of inserting it last episode. I tend to think Jenny tripped and fell.

In any case, the "Who Killed Jenny?" tagline for the entire 6th season was somewhat of a red herring, poorly planned and poorly executed. If you're going to frame a TV show as a mystery, you should provide the goods. Yes, they carefully provided each character a reason to kill Jenny. But it was pro forma. It was as if their heart wasn't in it. It wasn't really believable. They've spent 5 seasons trying to get us to empathize with these characters, and now we're supposed to believe one of them was capable of killing Jenny? This was half a mystery. We didn't see Jenny die, we didn't even hear her fall or scream, there weren't any real clues as to what happened, other than both Bette and Tina were alone with her right before it happened. And there's an awful lot of irony in having a show that was supposed to celebrate lesbian's lives end in death.

I assumed Bette and Tina were going to adopt Max's baby, but they didn't even resolve that. And, by the way, they never explained why they decided to adopt rather than have one of them carry the baby themselves. Unless I missed it. They already did that, so why not again? Apparently just to provide a mini-plot about a potential birth mother.

Dylan and Helena: WTF??? An awful lot of the episode was taken up with strange interactions between these two and I found I just didn't care. I felt like there must have been a missing episode that would have explained what was happening, LOL. Suddenly Dylan's grabbing a knife and into d/s? Why would Dylan have been mad about the "test" if Jenny already told her about it? It didn't really make sense. And why did they make Helena basically an alcoholic so late in the game? What was the point? And when did she acquire this fancy-schmancy seaside home? I thought she lost everything when she went to jail.

Alice/Tasha: It was very awkward when Tasha suddenly appeared at the end. I guess it was supposed to mean she rejected Jamie in favor of Alice, but it was so rushed, it wasn't clear.

Shane/Molly: I loved seeing Molly again. There didn't seem to be any point to her letter to Shane other than convincing Shane that Jenny really was evil. I wish they had let Shane stay with Molly. (And, guh, Carmen in the tribute video. I forgot how hot she was.)

I laughed when Jenny said her tribute video was 3 hours long.

And what was up with the smiling strutting in the final credits? That was just weird. We segue from the friends mourning Jenny, all sad-faced and anguished, to smiling, well-groomed, shiny, happy people sauntering in slo-mo towards the camera, for no apparent reason.

Minor quibble: I also laughed when Jenny was frantically trying to buy editing software mere hours before the video was supposed to be finished, and sent Shane out to the Mac store to buy Final Cut. I have that software, and you'd have to be a genius to learn it in a couple of hours. This little exchange pushed my buttons because Final Cut has been nagging my soul for a few months and I quake in my boots every time I start trying to make a video with it. I keep wimping out and using iMovie instead (way simpler). Possibly Jenny was familiar with the software already, but why was she just buying it? They showed her with the video on her computer before she talked about having to buy the software.

Thoughts on sequel with Alice: Alice in prison? darker tone? give me a break. What's great about Alice is her wry humor. She doesn't seem suited to a prison story. And do we really need another show about lesbians in prison? Did Chaiken not get this out of her system with Helena's ridiculous jail story? I can't imagine this is going to be any good. Although I hear Laurie Metcalf is going to be in it, and I've always liked her. (She played Rosanne's sister on the Roseanne show back in the day, and in fact, I always thought she'd make a good lesbian, or at least her character in that show should have come out, haha.)