It’s karaoke night at Dana’s and “Love Shack,” the B-52’s manic party anthem, which Alice coerces Bette and Shane into performing with her, aptly lends its title to the latest episode of “The L Word: Generation Q.” For the first time since Dani and Sophie’s disaster of a wedding, the gang’s back together under the same roof, transforming Dana’s into a messy, chaotic love shack that’s filled with plenty of hook ups and also a bit more heartache than the one promised by the song.
From the get-go, the night is off to a rocky start. Tess and Shane are running the show, but things have been … awkward with them since last week’s appearance of Cherie. Worse, Shane won’t tell anyone exactly what transpired between her and Cherie after Cherie’s return to Dana’s at the end of last week’s episode. “Nothing happened,” she tells Bette, Alice, Sophie, and Mirabel, who have all gathered together to celebrate the evening.
To which Bette replies, “Something must have happened or you wouldn’t have brought it up.”
So what did happen between Cherie and Shane? Shane won’t say. This doesn’t go over well with Tess, who later confronts Shane with the news that Cherie broke up with her. Tess is pretty sure that Shane had something to do with this, although Shane still won’t say what, exactly, happened — only that she didn’t sleep with Cherie. BS, Tess calls before storming out of the bar, effectively leaving Finley in charge of karaoke night.
Dani, meanwhile, has let Micah talk her into a karaoke-night appearance, giving her a chance to show off new BFF with maybe benefits, Gigi — a sort of reclaiming of space, as Dani says. Dani clearly has her doubts, as does Gigi, who is still wounded by her break-up with Bette. Micah, too, second-guesses his decision to come when he sees Mirabel; apparently, following their hook-up the previous week, she hasn’t returned his calls or texts. There’s a border crisis, Mirabel tells him when he confronts her about this. She’s busy lawyering.
Initially, Alice is experiencing the opposite problem: her love interest, Tom, hasn’t shown up for karaoke night. When he does finally arrive — in a tux, and fresh from an ex’s wedding — he thinks she’s summoned him there to be her wingman. Although disappointed, Alice decides she can’t handle rejection at the moment and so accepts his offer to help her pick up the ladies.
Sophie, meanwhile, extends an olive branch — or rather, a martini — to Dani. The two share a warm, platonic moment that’s witnessed by Finley, who then locks herself away in the staff room, which is where Sophie later finds her downing an IPA. “We’re just friends, right?” Finley asks.
“Well, if that’s what you want,” says Sophie.
“Is that a joke?” asks Finley.
Neither seems to fully comprehend that the other likes her. Yet when they mutually come to this realization, Sophie balks. Things are … hard, she says.
What is hard about it? Sophie doesn’t say. There’s obviously the tension that exists between her and Dani, and the fact that any relationship she has with Finley is essentially built on the ruins of what she and Dani once shared. However, the Dani/Finley decision is one she’s been struggling with since last season, and now that things are over with Dani, what’s stopping her from pursuing Finley?
Sophie doesn’t seem to know, either. But after a heart-to-heart with Alice, she realizes that, whatever else, she likes Finley — and perhaps it really is that simple. Despite having a voice which she earlier said was made for singing only in the shower, Sophie declares her love by singing Tegan and Sara’s “Closer,” paving the way for her and Finley to finally, and officially, get together.
Alice, too, decides to take a risk and asks Tom to dance with her — and not as a friend. To her surprise, and delight, Tom obliges, paving the way for the two of them to finally, and officially, get together.
While they don’t get together, Tess and Shane do eventually reconcile, after Shane finally tells her what went down with Cherie. As it turned out, Shane really didn’t sleep with Cherie. Instead, she’d told her to “back off.” This seems to be enough for Tess who, at this point in their exchange, steps tantalizingly close to Shane without actually touching her. Will Shane tell her what else she told Cherie? Tess asks.
“Yeah, I will sometime,” Shane says. “Soon.”
And Bette, who’d left karaoke early to attend an art exhibit put on by Pippa’s students, appears to be making some progress in winning over the reclusive artist. “You just don’t quit, do you?” Pippa asks, before telling Bette that she’d consider working with her if Bette gave her a chance to show her work again.
Not everyone is so lucky. Mirabel and Micah each end their nights at home, watching “Love & Basketball” — although not together. And a devastated Dani, after witnessing Sophie’s performance, flees Dana’s, her “reclamation” in shambles.
But things aren’t all gloomy for Dani. In the final scene, she and Gigi are drowning their mutual sorrows in ice cream when Gigi drops some big news: “I told you I’d let you know if my feelings for you changed. And they have. They’ve changed.”
The look on Dani’s face perfectly embodies the conflicting and chaotic emotions that have swirled throughout the episode. Is she terrified? Turned on? Both? We’ll have to wait until next week to see which emotion wins out.
