The Casting Word

Can you believe the finale for the first season of “The L Word: Generation Q” aired at the start of this year? January 26, to be exact. Doesn’t it feel like that happened three years ago? What a decade these last nine months have been. So the good news is the show is definitely coming back, having already secured its second season renewal before the pandemic started. After a delay because, well you know why, the show started filming its second season at the start of this month (as announced per Leisha Hailey’s Instagram feed showing an “Alice” show prop).

Last week we got the first casting news of the new season. The show announced three new guest stars, whose names made me go, “Cool. Sure. Meh.” They are: Rosie O’Donnell, Donald Faison and Griffin Dunne.

Per a report in The Wrap, Rosie plays Carrie, “a brash and kindhearted public defender who is thrust into Bette’s life and quickly gets under her skin;” Faison plays Tom, “a self-deprecating editor who works with Alice;” and Dunne plays Isaac, “one of the biggest international art mega-dealers who Bette comes to know.”

I have no major qualms with Donald or Griffin, and I suppose the show needs to add male characters now and then. But I am much more interested in Rosie’s role, and any possible future female quest stars coming to the season. Also, isn’t it kind of astounding that Rosie hasn’t been on “The L Word” before this? Like Arianna Huffington and Snoop Dogg were on the show, but not Rosie? Wild.

Our eagle-eyed and steel-minded friends at Autostraddle have sleuthed out that “Carrie” is also the name of Tina’s so-far-unseen fiancée. Could this Carrie be that Carrie? (Honestly, I had not remembered that tidbit from the show. Though these days I sometimes do not remember what day of the week it is, thanks pandemic brain.) Time will tell, but I can definitely see a Rosie type getting on the nerves of a Bette type, and vice versa.

While the reboot wasn’t flawless, it was both solid and refreshing in approach to telling stories about contemporary lesbian women’s lives, and the lives of the people they love and surrounds themselves with. So I can’t wait for its return. We’ve had a small embarrassment of riches when it comes to mainstream lesbian and queer women’s representation amid the smouldering horror of this year. Let’s keep that representation going in 2021, and make it even better and more inclusive.