More Lesbian-ish TV That I Missed: Mistresses

I've mentioned before that I'm not on real time when it comes to watching tv. I usually don't find the time or energy to get into a show until it's long been available for streaming or something. I was just made fun of on Facebook for being on S1E3 of Game of Thrones. It's my thing though. I hate delayed gratification. I made the mistake of starting to watch Faking It in real time, and now I have to wait with this huge, ugly cliffhanger until MTV does season 2, however long that will be. 

In the meantime, I take to Youtube to find out if I've been missing anything, and I came across this show called Mistresses—in particular the storyline of Joss and Alex. Joss is a real estate agent who is hired to help Alex and her wife find a house. Now, if you've watched any television at all you can pretty much write the storyline out yourself. Whenever a show introduces a lesbian character, especially if they're not part of the cast, it generally means they're about to send one of their main female characters (notice I didn't say lead) on a temporary trip to Sappho Island. I say temporary because while there are an increasing number of shows willing to take one of their main characters and send them on that journey, it's usually for a short time. There are exceptions of course, but there are far more OCs (Alex/Marissa) and Mistresses than there are Buffys (Willow/Tara) or Rookie Blues (Gail/Holly). 

I'm gonna rip on Mistresses for its predictability, but I'll start off with a bit of praise and an admission. Admission: I know that this is based on the UK version of the same name (it's a trend to just copy someone else's show these days), and I've never seen that version. I don't know how much of what happens on this show is sticking strictly to the story as it existed originally and how much is being embellished upon, added, or subtracted. So it may be that what I'm about to say about this show is out of their control, although I don't think so. While they may not be able to keep Alex and Joss together in the interest of staying true to the source, I'm sure they way they do things is open to interpretation and artistic license.  

On to the praise. One of the things that I did like about this storyline was the way they introduced the lesbian character and how they handled her sexuality. There was no big reveal—we didn't see Joss and Alex hanging out and becoming friends and then suddenly find out, oh hey, Alex is a lesbian. Joss and Alex become friends and there's no weirdness. You don't see Joss have to affirm her heterosexuality to Alex or warn her that she's not into women (because we know every lesbian really wants to bang straight women). It's all so very...human. Two women meet, have things in common, get along, and hang out. They go jogging together, drinking together, they talk about their lives and their relationships. It was beautiful. 

Then we fall into the Well of Tropes. Alex is attracted to Joss. Alex and Joss sleep together. Alex has feelings for Joss. Joss really values Alex. They give a relationship a go. Joss actually isn't a lesbian. They break up. Here's where I start ripping into the show. 

I don't have a problem with them getting together and breaking up. I have a problem with the reason for the breakup. What did her brother-in-law say? "You're not a lesbian." And that was sort've the shows way of summing up why Joss cheated on Alex and slept with her boss. She's such a hetero that she was missing the peen like crazy and couldn't help herself. One minute they have her sitting with this same dude telling him how her friendship with Alex was "the single most important thing in my life right now", and the next they show her getting all hot and bothered by this dude's mere presence. He's so steamy and dreamy, right? Suddenly. 

Here's the thing. We've long ago established that Joss is her own woman and not into the whole relationship thing. It's an integral part of her character and likely the thing that's going to be her development as the show goes on. I can't tell you how many times I heard reference to her flighty, free-spirited, no-commitments ways in the few episodes that I watched. It's her thing. And that thing would have been enough to explain why she was not going to work with Alex in the long term. It would have been more true to the storyline, to her character, and more organic. No one expects the woman who has a series of casual engagements to actually have a long-term relationship. 

Instead, they hang it on a definition of her sexuality, and a narrow one at that. So she's not a lesbian. Maybe she's bisexual. Are you saying a bisexual woman can't have a long-term relationship with a woman who identifies as lesbian? The way they've defined Joss actually leans more towards the possibility that she could be involved/in love with anyone. She even mentions that she had a threesome once before. She doesn't come across as a woman who would let a little thing like a label get in her way. Hell, she seems like the kind of woman who would actually bristle at being labeled. Why choose a hard-line definition of sexuality as the way to dissolve a relationship instead of using her inherent character traits? It's perfectly fine if she misses dudes and needs to get her hetero on. Again, it doesn't have to be at the expense of making such a hardline statement. A bisexual woman can miss men too. A bisexual, comittment-phobic woman could, say, enter a relationship with a woman, and then decide she needs to sleep with dudes again and that unless they can have an open relationship, they have to break up. This is all in keeping with the character.

Also, the whole "not a lesbian" thing as a reason doesn't jive with the way they've portrayed the relationship between these two women. Joss doesn't seem to have a problem with the whole "female" part of the relationship. One of my favorite scenes is this one:

Did that look like a woman for whom her partner's sex was a problem?

I wasn't surprised by what they did, but I was disappointed. It was just so easy and dismissive, and they started off so well. One day I'll be able to watch a show and see a girl-on-girl storyline developing and instead of feeling cautiously pessimistic I can be cautiously optimistic. Come on Rookie Blue Season 5!