It's season/series finale time. No, we're not talking about Bernie Sanders finally dropping out of the Democratic primary, we're talking Empire, Scandal, Grey's Anatomy, The Good Wife and more.
It's also the start of the new and improved Summer Season. So we're talking some fab new shows, including American Gothic, a new drama from Stephen Spielberg on CBS; The Night of on HBO, from The Wire alum Richard Price; and The Get Down, from Baz Luhrmann, which is going to be Glee meets Fame meets Moulin Rouge.
We're also talking The Biggest News Story of the Year that flew under the radar. Let's go there first. One of the perils of the media obsession with Donald Trump has been how everything else on the national landscape has fallen onto what daytime dramas call "the back burner." LGBT people are always on the back burner, so it's not surprising that a groundbreaking event for us would end up on C-SPAN on a Monday afternoon and never quite make it to the evening national news, when people are actually tuned in. Because Trump said something awful about Hillary and something else awful about Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and something else awful about Sen. Elizabeth Warren and then something scary awful about his financial policies that could end the global marketplace as we know it.
But Attorney General Loretta Lynch stepped up for us in a way that should have been the headline. The only headline. She filed a lawsuit, a federal government lawsuit, for us, for LGBT people. And it was magnificent. In response to North Carolina's massively awful HB 2 law that impacts LGBT people on myriad levels, but which has been reduced in mainstream media to yet another scaremongering "bathroom law" to wield power and be cover for the breadth and reach of the laws. Even most LGBT people don't realize that these laws �" North Carolina this month, Mississippi last month, Tennessee pending �" are about making us pariahs everywhere. Not just the T being carded at the bathroom doors in some humiliating exercise that pretends to protect women and girls from the epidemic of rape in America, which is all about straight men and has nothing to do with trans people. But the LGB these laws seek to disinherit from any semblance of protection in employment, housing, school, public accommodations.
AG Lynch, a native North Carolinian, cut through all that. She called these laws akin to Jim Crow. She said they created an atmosphere. She said they violated the Constitution. She said, "Some of you have lived freely for decades. Others of you are still wondering how you can possibly live the lives you were born to lead. But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama Administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward. Please know that history is on your side. This country was founded on a promise of equal rights for all, and we have always managed to move closer to that promise, little by little, one day at a time. It may not be easy, but we'll get there together."
The Attorney General of the U.S. ushered in a sweeping civil rights case for us, and it didn't make the news. Which is the height of irony, because this is what GOP legislators and governors like NC's Pat McCrory count on. That we won't ever make the news. If you missed Lynch's speech, it's on C-SPAN's site. Watch it. Take some tissues. It's breathtaking. It's our hope Hillary Clinton puts Lynch on the Supreme Court. Because it is Lynch, not Clarence Thomas, who would be the inheritor of Thurgood Marshall's legacy. And we love her.
Speaking of politics, one new summer series we are eagerly anticipating is BrainDead. This political thriller, created by Robert and Michelle King, creators of The Good Wife, which just ended its seven-season run on May 8, has been described as a cross between The West Wing and The Strain .
"We wanted to do a show that was a mix of genre-pulp and high-brow politics," Robert and Michelle King told Deadline Hollywood. "It seemed like the best way to address the news today �" not straight, but as the opening act of a horror movie." The Kings developed the series idea long before the Trump Train pulled into the station, which makes the concept all the more prescient.
Premiering June 13 on CBS, BrainDead stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who has a long resume of big and small-screen credits, most recently 10 Cloverfield Lane and Mercy Street. She's also got an Emmy. Winstead plays a young Hill staffer who discovers the brains of Congress members are being eaten/inhabited by aliens. Sci-fi or hyperrealism? Expect the same mix of dramatic tension, political chicanery and arch humor that characterized The Good Wife. This might be a hit, might be a miss, but it's got a stellar cast that includes Emmy winner Tony Shaloub (Monk ) as a GOP operative and Danny Pino (Law & Order: SVU). Ridley Scott is the executive producer, and it's summer, so try it.
Speaking of Good Wife (still hating-loving-hating that Sopranos-style finale), it looks like CBS is doing a spin-off with Christine Baranski and Cush Jumbo for their All Access channel. Emmy and Tony-winning Baranski, who made TGW's Diane Lockhart one of the best older female characters on the tube, is said to have turned down several other major projects for this one. Jumbo, the English actress who joined the cast in season six as Lucca Quinn, Alicia's African-American law partner, has great chemistry with Baranski. We would love to see something happen there, as we always thought Lucca had great lesbian potential. More to come.
The ax falls
May isn't just season and series finales, it's also sweeps month, which makes it cancellation month. A plethora of new shows have been axed, as well as some old favorites. Leaving ABC are Castle after eight seasons and Nashville after four. The latter is a surprise: the show's leads had recently been talking about the show as if it were already starting the new season. Hmmm.
Nashville has had a continuing gay story arc that brought gay to the world of country music. Other gay characters leaving the small screen include those in Fox's Grandfather'd, ABC's Agent Carter, HBO's Girls, TNT's Rizzoli & Isles (though technically not really lesbians, despite seven seasons of lying in bed together), CBS' Angel from Hell, Person of Interest and CSI: Cyber. The cancellation of Cyber also marks the end of the CSI franchise, which debuted in 2000.
Some faves that have been renewed include Greg Berlanti's new NBC thriller Blindspot, which has a strong lesbian storyline featuring Marianne Jean-Baptiste (yes, it's another person-of-color-is-also-lesbian diversity discount, but still powerful). Others: the whole ABC queer-friendly TGIT lineup is renewed: Grey's Anatomy for a 13th season, Scandal for a 6th, How to Get Away with Murder, which has the best gay sex scenes on the small screen, for a 3rd.
The spectacular American Crime, probably the most provocative series on network, will be back for a third season. NBC's Shades of Blue, where Jennifer Lopez showed she really can act and Ray Liotta stepped out as a bisexual detective, will return for a second season. So will Fox's pansexual Lucifer, gay Scream Queens and lesbian-laden Rosewood. NBC's Chicago Med, which also has gay characters, will be back for a second season. NBC's comedy Superstore returns for a second season, with some queer characters and the always-terrific America Ferrera. The creepy wonderful Netflix original dramedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, with one of the best gay characters on the tube, has been greenlighted for seasons two and three.
Fox's two powerhouse dramas Gotham and Empire are both returning for third seasons. (Hopefully Gotham will fix the gay problem it had this season.) On the CW all our faves will be back, including the Greg Berlanti LGBT lineup of Arrow and The Flash. Our personal fave iZombie gets a 3rd season, The Vampire Diaries gets an 8th, and Supernatural (yes, those boys are still gorgeous) gets a 12th season, making the show the longest-running in the CW's history.
One show we were happy to see renewed for a second season is ABC's The Real O'Neals. We totally dissed this show when it debuted in March. We thought it was going to be an achingly bad rehash of The McCarthys, which had failed epically a couple of seasons back. We were wrong. The show is a funny, moving story of a misfit family with the gay teenage son Kenny at the center. Noah Galvin's Kenny is pitch-perfect. He's sweet, complicated but not depressive, always trying to get it right with everything from being the good son to being the good gay. He's believable, fresh and truly fabulous. Real O'Neals pivots off him, but the secondary characters all work in tandem. Martha Plimpton as Eileen, the uptight, hyper-Catholic mother, is terrific, as is the supporting cast. On the May 12 episode, Project Runway's Tim Gunn guest-starred. Priceless.
Grey's Anatomy has made a concerted effort to get the gay right for the 12 seasons it's been on the air. But last week's episode was devoted to the custody battle between Callie (Sara Ramirez) and Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) over their daughter, Sofia. This is as real as it gets. The bliss of lesbian and gay married life doesn't always last, in real life or on TV. The couple split up a few seasons ago after an attempt at couples counseling and have shared custody since. Callie was considering leaving Seattle and moving to New York with her new partner, Penny (Samantha Sloyan). But Arizona said she couldn't take Sofia. Then it all blew up.
Callie filed for full custody. Arizona counter-sued. The judge made her decision after an ugly trial where Callie threw everything she could at Arizona, including a misogynist attack on her for being a female pediatric surgeon when she herself is an orthopedic surgeon. Callie, the birth mother, lost. Arizona, the adoptive mother, won. This, given the two could not commit to a shared agreement, was the right move. The judge saw clearly which mother was devoted to the child first, herself second. It was not the woman who gave birth to her, but the one who had raised her by choice and put the child's needs first. It was a heartbreaking episode for many reasons. Callie is no villain, and Grey's didn't portray her that way.
Most importantly for viewers, the show explored how biology doesn't always win out. In a battle between two mothers, the one who didn't carry the baby might actually be the better mother; with two lesbians, the issue of no father was never even raised. Which is why GA continues to be a show that centers LGBT people and "normalizes" them in the context of straight society. A brutal episode, but so instructive and believable.
Gay is complex on Empire, and the season finale (many spoilers ahead) exemplified just how much. This show always likes to end on a shooting, but were we expecting this? No. We. Were. Not. We saw the promos: "A Lyon will fall." We knew something would happen. But still, we were so unprepared. Jamal (Jussie Smollett) has got very hot and sexy times with producer D Major (Tobias Truvillion). But D is ultra-closeted, just like Jamal used to be. Jamal is no longer down with that whole "chicks in the streets, dicks in the sheets" thing, so he tells D they are done. "I worked damn hard to walk in my truth."
We get it, but oh, the chemistry. Fast-forward a week, and D and Jamal are back in the studio and D is heating things up again and we are so ready to see that happen when in comes Dad. (D had locked the door in last week's episode.) D panics, the way closeted dudes tend to do, and acts like Jamal came on to him.
Lucious (Terrence Howard) doesn't take it well. Lucious hasn't cured himself of his homophobia, and seeing his son having sexy times with his producer propelled him back into the rage place he was in when Cookie first got out of prison. So despite what happened with his own mother Leah, Lucious hisses at Jamal, "The day you die from AIDS, I'm going to celebrate." Cue the foreshadowing. Then there we are on the red carpet for the ASA Awards. Freda (Bre-Z) goes to shoot Lucious in retaliation for her father, Jamal steps in front of Lucious, and bang. Lucious' mother goes out to give a statement to the press outside the hospital where Jamal is, what? And fade to black. Will Jamal Lyon be the Jon Snow of this season?
The sneak-peak trailer for season 4 of Orange Is the New Black is out. and this exchange among several of our fave black characters caught us up:
"Black people. Look at Obama."
"Change." (fist-bump)
"He get to be President, so the rest of us�" "
"Get to be in prison." Boom.
It's gonna be a hella season, yo. It drops June 17. Perfect for Pride Month.
King of Queens. That's what Nightline called RuPaul in a fun segment on May 13. Dan Harris described himself as straight, not very tall, not very good-looking and not queenly. The 6'4" RuPaul was delightful as he explained to Harris how he could drag him up. The two talked the importance of drag in helping some gay men to find themselves and their voices, how drag talk came into the larger lexicon, and how RuPaul turned a moderately successful singing career into a veritable franchise. We have loved RuPaul forever, so it was great to see this segment with him on a mainstream show. The drag mistress noted, "Show biz is not for sissies. Drag is not for sissies," and explained that the reason he's done so well is "I'm ambitious." Fun and inspirational. Also, a new RuPaul show is in the works: Gay for Play.
Finally, you know how we love Carpool Karaoke. This week? James Corden with Julia Roberts, George Clooney and Gwen Stefani. Oh yes. Check it out at CBS.com.
So for the endless Trumping of America, for the final finales, return of our faves (America's Got Talent is bringing Simon Cowell back for the new season, beginning May 31) and so much more, you really must stay tuned.