As I wrote yesterday, despite the airing of the finale on Sunday night, and the bad taste it left in the mouths of many viewers, The L Word lives on — online at Showtime in webisodes called Interrogation Tapes. The tapes pick up where the finale left off, and give us a more detailed look at the investigation into all those suspected of killing Jenny Schecter (Mia Kirschner).
On Sunday night, the snippets of questioning embedded in the finale looked more like strolls down memory lane than representations of what really occurs between murder suspects and police. Sergeant Duffy (Lucy Lawless) didn't slam anyone up against a wall, nobody complained about the coffee or threw a chair, and not one person screamed "I'm innocent, I tell ya! Innocent!" at the top of her lungs. Rather the 'suspects' talked to the cops as if speaking to their therapists or, weirder, their priests. And the online Interrogation Tapes are, as you might have expected, extensions of that
implausibility.
But here's the interesting part: It kinda works.
Granted, I've only watched the first tape — the interrogation of Tina Kennard — but it didn't take long for me to realize that it provided me with something I never got enough of through the series: measured drama.
One of my biggest complaints with The L Word had always been that the writers repeatedly tried to do too much with too many characters. They fell into a trap that they should have known better than to fall into. Instead of doing less in the interest of revealing more, they did far too much and, as a result, never conveyed enough. They attempted so much, in fact, that viewers were frequently left hanging (think of Helena's 'missing' children and Papi's vanishing act) or were subjected to characters who showed up in a scene just to present a line of dialogue that advanced the plot so little that it hardly would have been missed (think of Kit's ridiculously brief appearances in which she said nothing substantial and almost always punctuated her insignificance with "Girrrrl!" At least they never make her sing "Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen" at The Planet.
Anyway, back to Tina.
This past season, Kennard (played by Laurel Holloman) finally became the woman I'd always hoped she would be — strong, secure, happy and no longer willing to be a passive-aggressive dust bunny carried around L.A. on mighty winds created by the movements of the great and powerful Oz Bette Porter. After years of being the poster child for learned helplessness, in the end, Tina was finally heard over the big, giant sucking sound that was Bette's type-A personality. So how refreshing was it for me to see her sans Bette on the 'tape,' and to listen to her talk for over four minutes about herself? To discover she had a life before Bette?
Very.
During the questioning, Tina talks about her mother, father, her friendship with Jenny, and her love for Bette. But when asked if Bette was her "first" (read: first lesbian experience), she answers, "No, she wasn't. I told her she was my first. I told everybody she was my first. But, my first was my sister — my older sister .. I was eleven, maybe. Twelve? I don't know."
Yeah, I know. There, there.
But forget for a moment how displaced that confession is, and that it probably has nothing to do with Jenny's death. (And maybe you should get used to doing that if you're going to follow the tapes.) Try hard not to think about how icky that statement is, how you might have preferred that Tina not be made an example of incest by writers. Ignore if you can that the writers didn't offer even a line of dialogue pointing to the fact that, while it's true gays and lesbians are sometimes victims of incest, it's also true that molesters victimize heterosexuals, that the majority of molesters are heterosexual, and that not everyone in the entire GLBT community is a victim of molestation, as many religious conservatives believe.
Oh, and also try not to say, "Her sister? Really? Her sister? What the fuck?" over and over again.
Instead, consider that you're getting to know Tina on an entirely different level, more intimately and through a medium that isn't your television. Consider that if this first tape is a sign of things to come, maybe you'll get to know the other 'suspects' more intimately, as well.
Or not.
It would probably also be smart not to lose sight of the fact that these tapes are being brought to you by the very same people that brought you The L Word. In other words, enjoy, but don't get your hopes up.
© 2009 Kim Ficera
