Ah, Regret.

If you’ve read any of my “L Word” posts to date,  then first of all, you deserve some kind of award.  But more to the point, you probably already have a pretty good idea of what I’m going to say about the finale.  I’m probably going to use words like “phew!”, “relieved”, and “thank god that’s over”.  And I’ll admit that, up until this week, I probably would have agreed with you.  But now that the “Last Word” has been spoken, as it were, it turns out both you and I were wrong.  It turns out that, now that it’s all over, the last words I have for this show are “disappointed” and “sad”.

“Disappointed” as in, “I’m not angry, Ilene…  just disappointed.”  (You know how much worse that is!)  For five years, “The L Word” was the only show in town. So, as you can imagine, lesbians were filled with high hopes (and a lot of other feelings) for it.  And for a few seasons, things went pretty well (huge exception:  Dana’s death–which Ilene supposedly regrets, HA).  Like other TV shows, it had its share of annoyingly outrageous plot lines, but overall it was exciting to see a bunch of lesbians (just like us!  Sort of.)  living, loving, laughing, and all of those other l’s.  But by the time Season Five rolled around, the grumblings were getting louder.  Jenny was becoming unbearably bitchy/crazy.  Adele was even worse.  Shane still couldn’t hold on to a girlfriend for more than five minutes.   The dialogue seemed poorly written (maybe it always was, and we were just now noticing?).  Dana was still dead.  Etc.  Etc.

Sadly, the worst was yet to come.  As soon as the first rumors of Season Six’s “murder-mystery” theme hit the internetz, I realized that this series was about to carry on for one season too long.  In Season Five, the filming of Lez Girls (essentially a movie about the show, contained within it) brought the show to the brink of cheesiness: it was a gimmicky plot device, yet its bizarreness was actually kind of interesting–entertaining, at the very least.  But Season Six–the Max pregnancy, the show’s LBD, the “Who killed Jenny?” crap–now that was just a mockery.  

To paraphrase Alex, was Ilene even trying?  ”The L Word” used to be meaningful, at times funny, and–for the most part–enjoyable.  It used to be respectable not just as a TV show about lesbians, but as a TV show period.  But now, I can’t help but feel a sense of loss–and it’s not so much over Jenny’s death (well OK, maybe a little–I kind of liked her in Season Five!) or the show’s end (although that’s certainly sad–especially considering the astounding lack of any other lesbian shows on television right now, five years later).  What really makes me sad is the show’s loss of dignity.  And that’s the one thing that could prove even harder to get over than Dana’s death.  (Like Marge Simpson would say, I’m a woman.  I can hold on to it forever.)

And now, only one question remains:  which will we miss less, that unbearable theme song, or these unbearably long recaps?

Here’s a little something to help you decide.