#aloto analysis

Ignoring the scene itself for now, let’s start in the beginning-ish. Carson and Lupe don’t really interact all that much in the first episode. The one significant scene they do have is when all of the Peaches are at the bar (not the gay one), and we get the ending of a conversation they’re having. Lupe has apparently told Carson that her dad didn’t want her going there, but she went anyway. Then Carson says that she kinda ran away too. Lupe asks if that’s why she looks so different now (given her recent haircut from Greta) and Carson says she doesn’t look that different. Lupe says she does and then walks away. It's not an unpleasant conversation. There's not really anything negative going on here, and it honestly seems like Lupe is flirting at the end there. Carson doesn't really pick up on that though, and Lupe just sort of leaves and they don't really have any similar interactions after this.

This scene alone shows that while Lupe might not have straight up known that Carson was gay, she was at least willing to test the waters to see if that was a possibility. But even though their interaction here ends well, she never really attempts to flirt with Carson again. There is probably reason for that.

In the second episode, again there isn’t much in the way of interaction between the two of them. However, this is where you can begin to see that they’re in very different worlds. In fact, they’re both living in very different worlds than the majority of their team. First, let’s address Carson, and to explain Carson’s big divergence from the rest of her team, I think Greta actually explained it best.

During Charm School, it's made apparent that Carson is more or less immune to the danger that a lot of the girls are in here. Not only is she not masculine presenting like some of the girls are, she’s married. She’s not a danger to the team’s image, if anything she’s an asset. Because what better way to prove that they aren’t destroying womanhood than to have women who are not only married, but married to men currently serving in the war. Carson isn’t fucking going anywhere. Lupe on the other hand, is at risk, and she seems to know it. 

She is trying to smile and give a good attitude and appearance when she's being judged.

While Jess and Fern (the girl who gets kicked out) are joking with Carson, Lupe is taking this all very seriously. You don't see her often in these scenes, but when you do, she's focused. It's almost bizarre when you notice it for the first time.

And then afterward, when they pass and the surviving Peaches are going out to eat, Lupe isn't visibly uncomfortable in the same way that Jess is. Jess is physically uneasy with herself. Lupe, maybe has some of that too, but she seems more to be trying to mentally snap out of something. As if she had to put herself in a headspace that isn't comfortable or easy for her to get out of.

Lupe isn't the only one uncomfortable after Charm School, but she definitely was one of the ones that was, where again, Carson wasn't. Carson was always safe, and she wouldn't have even realized how unsafe the others were if Greta hadn't been blunt with her about it. They are exceptions within their team, but while Carson's exceptions makes her safer, Lupe's puts her in danger.

So let's jump ahead to their first game.

So the very first game starts for Lupe with racism. Not only are they playing on racist tropes in order to get the "customers" interested in her, but they also also have to lie about her to make her more palatable. Her being Mexican isn't appealing and might actually upset people, so the league has decided to make her Spanish instead. This along with the sexism that all of the other girls received from the announcer, is what she's greeted with on her first game.

Now, maybe Carson received some sexist comments too. I'm sure she did to some extent, but she's again, married to a man currently serving at war. I don't think that she would have gotten nearly as much as the unmarried girls, especially since the announcer seems to feel the need to point out which girls are single. And she definitely didn't get any of the racism that Lupe (and probably Esti, though I don't recall a specific instance of that) got while playing. Not to mention that when the girls get their first pay checks in episode 3, Lupe and Esti are the only ones that Bev feels the need to tell this to:

For some reason they are the only two that Bev feels the need to suggest they be patriotic. I'm sure its nothing.

None of this specifically connects their relationship, but it's important background knowledge to keep in your head when looking at the next few episodes. Because this is the world that Lupe is living in when she really starts to see Carson very differently than her initial flirting.

So episode three is where you really start to see the conflict between Lupe and Carson develop, and for the most part it initially just revolves around them independently trying to deal with Dove. No one on the team seems unaware that Dove is an issue, though it seems on a surface level that Lupe doesn’t notice it, given that she appears to just goes along with everything Dove says without question. Even the other girls think that Lupe is “up Dove’s ass” and would rat them out if she knew they were doing secret practices, so they don’t tell her. They all exclude her. Even Esti. Even Jess. And she knows that she’s being excluded from something because she wakes up for breakfast and nobody is there. 

Now, the secret practice itself isn’t entirely Carson’s doing. They all came up with the idea more or less together and went along with it, but Carson is the only other one on the team that is seen trying to deal with the Dove problem (outside of Jo telling him something and him lashing out on her). Her initial attempt was to give him a conversation pie. Now to literally anyone with eyeballs who isn't experiencing this show through Carson's point of view, it would look like Carson is sucking up to him. This is after Greta repeatedly made jokes about Dove being her “daddy,” and making Carson reveal that she and Dove have talked privately. So, Carson looks like she’s sucking up to Dove. Not only that, she made him a fucking pie. Can you get more stereotypically conservative American housewife than making someone a pie and then trying to talk to them about some problems you want them to fix.

Let’s talk about Lupe’s reaction to Dove. Lupe is not comfortable with Dove, but like Charm School, she sees it as something she just has to get through. If you think she likes Dove, let’s look at her initial reaction to when Dove gave her the nickname that sticks with her for the rest of the season.

Dove just says a bunch of racist stuff to her face (after indicating that she would be the keeper of his legacy, of course) and then goes on with the interview. Lupe is visibly upset by this, and looks to the other two authority figures that could stop Dove, and she gets told to keep smiling. So she nods, and continues to smile through the interview while Dove strokes his own ego. 

Lupe does not like this man. Lupe tells the reporter that she’s just excited to get some in before Dove interrupts her, and reminds them all that they’re here to talk about him. So it's made clear to Lupe that the way to get through this is with Dove. So Lupe sticks with Dove. Early on, maybe she could have been convinced to go against him some, but why would she go against him later on? When the other girls did so, they specifically left her out.

Lupe injures herself doing Dove’s stupid pitch because she’s not given any other way to make it for herself except through Dove, because her own teammates excluded her. There might have been ways to get through to her if they’d tried, but they didn’t. So now Lupe has to double down and stick with Dove’s plans entirely because its the only one. 

Now, let’s think of some of the reasons why Lupe might think she has been left out. She might realize she’s “up Dove’s ass.” Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. But Carson made him a fucking pie to butter him up. She’s looks like she's up Dove's ass too and she went to the secret practices. So what else could there be? She’s not the only Hispanic person in the house who’s whiteness and patriotism is actively questioned. Esti went to the practice. And she’s not the only visibly queer person. She is however, the only one that hits all of these "faults." Others might be different, but Lupe is too different. At least, she is if you're someone who would be bothered by different things.

We the audience know that this isn’t why Lupe was excluded. But why would Lupe know that? Especially when Esti eventually outs Carson as the person behind the practices. Regardless of whether or not it's actually her doing entirely, she’s the one that gets pointed to, and you know what, that would just make sense, wouldn’t it. 

Little Miss American housewife with the army husband, from a farm in the country excluding Lupe specifically. When Lupe gets injured, Carson is the one that jumps on benching her. Carson seems to be the one isolating her from the team, and is now trying to get her off it. Unlike that first night in the bar, now Lupe would be well aware that Carson is married with her husband at war. That she’s from a farm (not really but ya know). Lupe doesn’t know about Carson’s internal goings on. She doesn’t know about her getting close to Greta or any of the others that might be queer. Lupe sees her own experiences with Carson and has figured out who Carson is: a typical white conservative housewife from rural America that would turn her ass in the second she had a reason to. Genuinely, why would Lupe think anything else of her at this point? She hasn't been able to see any other side of Carson.

So jumping forward quite a bit to when Dove leaves. Lupe has up until this point been doing everything that she was “supposed” to do and gets rewarded by most of the team picking Carson over her as the coach. Lupe was the one that stuck with Dove like management wanted and Carson was the one that lead the coup against him, yet Carson gets rewarded. Wonder why? 

This entire time, tensions between them increase. When they’re playing the night game and trying to call out the cheating, Carson gives some stupid speech about what her soldier husband would want. Lupe actually knows the rules and gets something done about it. Carson is given authority because she’s the token white married woman on the team (except maybe Terri but ignore Terri we have no idea if she’s actually married). She’s the safe one. Lupe ticks too many boxes on why she isn’t acceptable despite doing everything right. 

Then, we have Greta making things a bit worse.

Here we have Greta just sticking her beautiful birdlike neck in where it shouldn't be in order to try to stick up for her girlfriend. Lupe doesn’t know they’re together or even that they're gay. She probably doesn’t even know they’re friends because of how discreet they've been trying to be. She just sees Greta confirming that she’s known all along. Carson is the poster girl. Lupe is the one that’s too much. After Greta leaves, she angrily and sarcastically asks “Why’s that?” and then beats her hat against the post when Carson leaves. The woman is at a breaking point. 

And then the fight happens.

It’s the fucking hick comment that convinced me, really. 

Lupe tells Carson that she hasn’t been able to play because of her, because yeah, from where she’s sitting it does look like Carson’s fault. Carson is the one that didn’t include her in practices. Carson is the one that got her benched. Carson is the one that took the job that she was more qualified for. And every single person has sided with Carson against her. Can we blame Lupe for finally having enough? Because even if she’s missing very important context that would explain things some, she has no way of having that context. 

And to cap things off, when she finally just has enough and the fight happens, everyone still sides with Carson against her. Carson becomes the full time coach, everyone blames her for the fight, and the only person that eventually somewhat understands what the problem is, is Jess. Even then, that’s only when Lupe explicitly points out to Jess that she’s dealing with shit Jess doesn’t have to think about.  And while Jess eventually gets that, she still has more context than Lupe because she not only was included in all of the things that Lupe wasn’t, she also knows that Carson and Greta are fucking. So she knows that Carson isn’t entirely the impression that Lupe has of her.

And now we get to the scene. 

Lupe has been through all of this. She has had to deal with this woman for the entire season. Things are finally calming down. Then one night when she’s at a gay bar, where she is explicitly safe from people like Carson, Carson fucking follows her to the bar. 

Now this is terrifying. Because while Carson could only argue and complain before, now she caught Lupe doing something no one is supposed to do, someplace none of them are supposed to be. Like, literally, Carson is now a serious danger to Lupe, a danger to Jess, a danger to Lupe’s date, and a danger to the entire bar. It initially seems to Lupe like Carson knows exactly what is going on and is disgusted by it. And if she said something, people would believe Carson. Because they always have before, and honestly, who wouldn’t believe it if Carson outed Lupe? 

See I joke about Lupe’s broken gaydar here, because it is funny. Like, literally every other queer person knew something was up with Carson, but none of them were Lupe. None of them had to deal with things that Lupe had to deal with, and none of them were excluded as much as she was. Lupe’s gaydar is broken with Carson because she never had a chance to have any other impression of Carson. And clearly it wasn’t actually broken, because she tested the waters with Carson the very first night in Rockford. It was everything that happened after that made it seem like that initial impression was very wrong.

 This revelation that Carson is not only queer, but sleeping with Greta really flips everything for Lupe. Because what she thought she understood as passive aggressive hostility was clearly just Carson being fucking stupid and clueless. And now she’s not the bigot that is gonna turn her in and ruin her life and dreams of pitching, but she’s a little baby gay who didn’t even know that places like this existed. That didn’t know the Jess and Lupe were gay, or what butch means, or that half of the league is gay. Now Lupe's laughing with Jess as they try to explain queer shit to Carson, and that is the first time she really seems comfortable around Carson. Because this is when Lupe realizes that Carson has been excluded from something this entire time that she didn't even know existed.

It's not just that she hated Carson and so assumed that she was straight, or that she learned that Carson is gay and so suddenly likes her. It’s that she didn’t have any reason to believe anything but the worst about Carson, and now she has the context that makes a lot of things suddenly make some sense. And because now, she’s clearly the authority on things that Carson really wants to learn about. Now they actually know each other’s secrets, and they’re shared secrets and it’s found in a place where they don’t have to hide it. This is the first time that Lupe and Carson are instantly on the same page about something.

After this, there’s no real tension between them. It's not so much that everything is ok and fixed. Lupe is still dealing with stuff, it's just clearly not Carson that's the issue anymore. It's not Carson who seems to be doing these things to her. Carson's now one of the few people that's approachable and who Lupe is willing to loosen up and joke with. Whereas before she might have tried to avoid Carson entirely unless absolutely necessary, now she's pulling Carson in to mess with other people and have fun with their ignorance. It's other people that won't know what's going on now.

Now that they share something, it's almost everyone else on the team (and otherwise) that’s excluded from their fun. Now, they’re both actually understanding each other and can work together for the first time.

Now it's not Lupe excluded from the rest of the team, and it's not Carson thinking that she and Greta are alone in their queerness. Now it's all of the queer Peaches having their own celebration together and not letting anyone else in on it. Because as overdone the metaphor is, now they all know they're on the same team.

So, no, I don't think Lupe's gaydar was broken, no matter how funny that joke is or how many times I make it (and will continue to make it). I just think that there was some very understandable interference preventing her from getting a good reading.

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Other ALOTO essays:

Queerness, Contamination, and the Neurosis of Shirley Cohen

Greta Gill: Visibility and Isolation

A Day With Greta

Greta and Jo are the first prominent characters in the series that Carson meets, meaning that they’re the first that the audience meets after Carson herself. When the pair see Carson for the first time, she is trying to remain unnoticed as she follows them to tryouts. But once they notice her, it's fairly obvious that they clock her…as a ball player. She’s dressed to play baseball, carrying luggage, and sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the other women in the street, just like they are. Jo tells Carson that she can’t follow them because she’s competition, but Greta says she doesn’t look like much. When Carson sticks up for herself a little, Greta tells her to come with them then.

Jo seems a bit annoyed at Greta telling Carson to come along, but she says “it’s fine,” and the trio get to walking and talking. Greta is immediately friendly and chipper, but when you look at what she actually says, she’s kinda cagey. She mentions people “not having time to read in New York,” which is obviously a lie given New York city has probably the biggest literary scene in the country, and given that we know that Greta has read at least one book. But this was most likely said so that she could drop information about herself, as this implies to Carson that’s where she’s from. Strangely, when Carson asks outright if that’s where she’s from, Greta doesn’t agree to it outright.

It’s not something that immediately gives off an odd impression. It actually just sounds like she’s trying to brag. “The Big Apple, Houston, Paris. Which is in France. Ever heard of it?” She’s being a little snobbish, but in a way that’s clearly meant to impress Carson specifically, but she doesn’t say she’s been to these places. She says she’s from these places, which gives a very specific impression of a childhood spent moving from place to place with family. That doesn't necessarily have to be what she means, but it's the most obvious way to read this line, especially if you’re just meeting her and this is one of the first things you learn about her. Based on details we get from Greta later, we know that this most obvious reading isn’t the actual truth. Maybe not a lie, but not a complete truth, and she’s at the very least not wanting to give specifics about her origins.

Immediately after this, we get a much more blatant lie. After Greta distances herself from New York and insists that she’s “from all over,” Jo brings up that she dated a movie star. Greta immediately seems playfully annoyed by this being mentioned, but she and Jo simultaneously reveal the person to be “Hendricks Johnson from the Wizard of Oz.” She explains that he is one of the lollipop kids. 

Now, this is very clearly a provable lie and we don’t need to have hindsight of knowing that Greta is a lesbian to know this. Lesbians can have dating histories that include men after all, so why do we know that this is definitely a lie? There’s no Hendricks Johnson in the Wizard of Oz. 

The actors that played the lollipop guild members were Jackie Gerlich, Jerry Maren, and Harry Earles. There isn’t an actor with the name Hendricks Johnson in the 1939 film–which is definitely the one being referenced here–nor is he in the cast of the 1925 silent movie. There doesn’t seem to be anyone that exists with that name, in fact. It’s a complete fabrication, and that’s the point. 

From the way that Jo brings it up and Greta’s reaction to it being brought up, it seems to clearly be a joke between them. We lack any context for its origin, and with hindsight of knowing about Greta and Jo’s queerness, it seems and odd thing to bring up to a stranger. At least it does at first glance. 

As a reminder, immediately before Jo brought up Hendricks Johnson (whoever that is), Greta was listing off the various places she’s supposedly from, and she’s doing this specifically after Carson seemed impressed about the prospect of her being from New York. Greta immediately downplays the extent that she’s from New York, but then starts bragging about other places she’s from. “Paris, which is in France. Ever heard of it?” 

Greta’s tone is bragging here, but there’s more than a bit of playfulness. She’s turning around while walking to smile at Carson and see her reaction. Then Jo jumps in to bring up this man that Greta supposedly dated, but definitely did not actually because that man doesn’t exist. Greta is instantly amused by Carson, instantly seems to be checking her out and interested in her. Maybe she even clocks her completely right here, and she goes straight into trying to get to the bottom of that (intentional wording). Jo is the one that slows her down and this happens out in the open with no one watching ever knowing the wiser, unless they are already in the know. 

But maybe Jo doesn’t bring this up just to cover for Greta’s lack of absolute discretion. Or maybe Greta simply takes an opportunity, because after revealing that she dated this fake lollipop kid, she leans in close to Carson and adds some details.

She says that he was the one that actually handed the lollipop, but gets cut off before saying to who. It’s obvious that she was going to say Dorothy, but doesn’t get the chance to actually say that name, and after Jo interrupts, the conversation never gets picked up again. In fact, the Wizard of Oz doesn’t get brought up again at all until episode six. That episode deals heavily in Wizard of Oz references, from opening to ending scenes, but the first time in the entire season when someone finally says Dorothy’s name is in this specific context:

Here, Carson is very blatantly asked if she’s queer using that phrase. The name Dorothy is explicitly linked with queerness. Relate this back to the first episode when one of the first things that Greta tries to talk quietly to Carson about is Dorothy, but she gets interrupted before getting the chance to actually do so. It’s unlikely that Greta would have actually asked the question of Carson right there in the street, only a handful of minutes after meeting her, but it's part of a long build up to eventually asking that question. All of this is happening in Carson’s point of view, in her storyline, and the only context in which Dorothy is every brought up in her storyline is in reference to queerness. 

Greta and Jo have built up a lie that specifically allows them to bring up Dorothy (which the show tells us is associated with queerness) while also protecting Greta from being outed, as it's in the context of her dating a man. It gives anyone who hears that story the chance to show some sign of recognition at the name Dorothy and convey some connection to it, but to anyone else it's just a story. It’s a very subtle way of beginning to advertise their queerness without actually doing so. It protects them from having to be the first to out themselves to other queer people. 

This is only a few minutes into the show at all and even less time since we’ve been introduced to Greta, but it's an immediate reflection of who she is as a character. She flirts. She brags. She lies, but she lies in extremely specific ways. She lies by exclusion to play into people’s assumptions about her without saying anything outright, and she lies outright to protect herself from being outed as a lesbian. And Jo is there to help her as she does this. 

This scene on the street ends with Greta flirting with some soldiers to get cigarettes for herself, Jo, and Carson. This is something she does in a pretty showy way, and then makes clear to Carson that she was only getting cigarettes for all of them. She’s putting on a show for Carson while giving the appearance to anyone not in the know that she’s into men, including Carson herself if she’s not actually a friend of Dorothy. 

Then Greta notices the wedding ring and immediately points it out. She asks Carson what her husband thinks of her playing baseball and she listens and watches as Carson talks about it. Just looking at her expression, she is clearly intrigued by Carson. We don’t know what she’s thinking about when Carson is talking about her husband, but she’s clearly having some thought. When the camera shows Carson, you can see Jo looking at Greta and occasionally nodding or making a face to something Carson says. Then Greta declares, “This is really boring,” and they continue on to tryouts. 

This is our first look at Greta, and it actually reveals a lot more that it might seem. She likes to impress. She likes to tell stories that make people–particularly random female baseball players–think she’s impressive. She obscures details and outright lies to protect herself, but will still flirt while doing it. And she’s with Jo.

The first time and really the entire time we see Greta this episode, she’s not alone. Jo is there to chime in. Jo is there to hold her suitcase when she goes to get cigarettes. Hell, Jo is even telling her where to go from the first shot we have of them, because Jo is the one with the map. It’s always Greta and Jo. Carson is the tagalong in this instance. 

As the episode moves on, we see Greta keeping up this demeanor if not quite as obviously. She makes sure to wave to Mr. Baker. She winks at Carson at tryouts and continues to keep her around for no apparent reason. And she is always with Jo. When all of the other girls are readying for bed, she, Jo, and Carson are there but not really interacting much with the other girls. Jo and Greta seem to be talking to each other and Carson seems to be more or less there. It might be assumed that she’s being humored, except whenever Carson tries to go off on her own, Greta and Jo go after her. 

Greta and Jo come into Carson’s room uninvited and Greta asks to cut Carson’s hair. When Carson allows it, it seems like Jo’s gone and it's just Carson and Greta. This is the first time Carson is alone with Greta, but keep in mind that we haven’t seen Greta alone yet. She comes into the room with Jo and we don’t see when she and Carson eventually part ways for the night. There isn’t actually an instance of Greta being actually alone this entire episode.

What we do see is that in this scene, Greta sneaks a peak at what Carson had been writing on the first indication that she’s not being watched. On an initial viewing, the assumption most viewers would likely have is that she’d read it and keep the fact that she read it to herself. Maybe she will bring it up sometime down the line when she thinks she has some way to use the information, but that isn’t what happens. Literal seconds after reading it, she reveals what she’s done.

As soon as Greta reads what Carson wrote and decides it fits the assumption that she had of Carson, she immediately admits that she read it. She doesn’t ask Carson to explain what is going on with her or what exactly she meant by “There’s something wrong with me…” She expresses interest in Carson’s story, but frames it as something actually interesting to her.  She doesn’t ask the question in a way that suggests she finds it amusing or wants to make fun of Carson for it. She sounds genuinely interested.  

While Carson is initially hesitant to share anything–not the least because she doesn’t exactly get what’s going on with herself–Greta’s interest gets her to reveal details pretty quickly. It’s more than safe to assume that Greta has been picking up hints of queerness from Carson this entire day, and she read Carson’s note and found it to verify her assumptions. If she isn’t completely certain of Carson’s queerness at this point, she knows its a possibility, and one getting stronger and stronger as she learns about Carson. So instead of hiding the fact that she looked at the note, she tells Carson. Because Greta doesn’t like hiding. Not in herself or in others, especially when it comes to people like Carson. I’ll explain what I mean by that in a moment. 

The more Greta learns about Carson and the more sure she is that she clocked Carson correctly, the more sympathetic and encouraging she is. She pushes Carson to explain exactly what she wants and to not second guess chasing that. She encourages Carson to stay on her chosen path to the point where she’s helping Carson write the letter to Charlie. Specifically, she’s making sure that Carson writes the letter clearly, that her feelings are made evident and concise. She makes sure that Carson uses nice paper and a pen with a flex nib–which indicates a focus on nice handwriting if you’re not a freak who knows about pen nibs like me. The letter appears thought out and perfect so that it can’t seem hastily done and dismissed as a panicked response from Carson feeling weird about running away. 

All of this happens on the first day that Greta knows Carson. It seems odd, especially for someone like Greta who gives an appearance of someone who’s worldly and who doesn’t care about things like books and whatever farm Carson is from (she’s not from a farm). Greta doesn’t initially seem like someone interested in taking in a farm girl she found on the street and helping her find herself. So let’s reframe Greta’s actions up to this point a bit. 

Greta and Jo have just arrived in Chicago and while on their way to baseball tryouts, find a woman following them. Unlike literally every woman on the street around them, this one is wearing a jumpsuit and a baseball hat and clearly looks lost. When Jo confronts her, Carson stammers and tries to brush it off. She tries to fade back into the background and go unseen, and would very likely try to keep following them regardless. Greta watches this and you can visibly see her expression change as she realizes that the person following them is a scraggly little farm girl (though she isn’t actually from a farm) dressed to play baseball and clearly clueless on how to get around the city. Greta sees someone with something very visibly in common with her and Jo, but who’s trying to remain unseen and doesn’t seem to know what she’s doing. So, Greta invites her to just tag along, because she’s going to be there anyway. 

Then Greta spends the rest of this first day with Carson doing two things. First, she draws attention to herself but in very specific ways. She makes herself prominent in Carson’s view, but remains in control of exactly how she’s seen and what Carson learns about her. Second, she does her very best to draw out the hidden details from Carson. She sees Carson trying to hide herself physically and emotionally, and she nudges her out of that inclination. She finds a woman like her in at least one way, sees her alone and tells her to come along and follow her and Jo. Once Carson makes that choice and it remains looking like she wants to be there, Greta doesn’t let her isolate or hide herself again. 

This is all a very long winded look at Greta’s complicated relationship with visibility and isolation. This is only a handful of hours in her life, coming from the point of view of Carson, but here we see Greta is never alone. Greta thrives being seen and controlling how she’s seen. She actively makes sure to be getting the attention she wants at every public moment, and she does not like finding people that are struggling to do as she does. Especially when those people seem to at least in some way be part of her crowd; people like her. When it comes to people like her struggling in some way, Greta’s instinct is always to take matters into her own hand. She puts herself out there so that they are a bit less hidden and alone, and she does her very best to keep it that way.

A World of Complications

In a perfect world, Greta would not have any issues making herself known and finding comfort in the presence of others. In even a more comfortable imperfect world, there might be struggles but it wouldn’t be impossible. Greta Gill lives in a world where she is aware of what she wants, but she’s also aware that it's impossible to obtain. For all that she hates hiding, not controlling her image, and being alone, it is impossible to achieve all freedom from all of these things. 

When the Peaches make their way to Rockford, they are arriving in a much more permanent residence. With any degree of permanence, Greta’s actions start to change some. She revels in the company of her new teammates, but she doesn’t make any obvious alliances with anyone other than Jo. She and Jo came onto the team as an established relationship (something that is clearly known by the team) but she doesn’t make any new close friendships in an obvious way. At the bar, she does go to talk to Carson twice, but Lupe also talks to Carson and Greta can be seen talking to Jess and others. Even walking to the bar, she stayed by Shirley rather than anyone else she was more familiar with. It's not obvious what is going on there, as the only person that Greta sticks to at the bar is Jo. She leaves Jo when Carson is sitting alone, but once Jo is dancing alone, she leaves Carson alone again. To anyone watching, Jo is the most important person there to Greta. She dances with Jo. She always returns to Jo once she’s bounced around talking to various teammates. Jo is the most important person to Greta, which does help hide the fact that she’s flirting with Carson publicly. 

At this point, Greta is still in control of how she’s viewed by strangers. She isn’t seen in the corner flirting with Carson and taking her hand to lead her to a storage closet. She’s seen as the person loudly joking with Jo and dancing weirdly. This is evident by the fact that when Clance and Max see the Peaches dancing strangely and pointing it out, its Jo and Greta they’re seeing.

Greta is clearly trying to be seen, to be public (she was the one that had the Peaches go out in the first place), but to also get what she wants. And what she wants just happens to be something that isn’t allowed and would put her and others in danger. So she tries to balance those needs. She has fun with a crowd around her and is showy as she wishes. Then, when she’s finally sure about Carson’s queerness and attraction to her, she goes somewhere dark and hidden to do something about that. She’s careful to control exactly who sees her doing what at this point, but there’s a problem with that.

Because this shot is from Max's point of view. 

While Max doesn’t actually pose a threat to Greta and Carson, this still illustrates a problem. For all that Greta does the absolute most to control how she presents herself, what she says and does in public and with who, she cannot account for everything. There is always the random coincidence that can get her caught and there is nothing she can do to account for that, except to never kiss Carson in the first place. 

Now, Greta never finds out that she was seen, and so goes about with the assumption that all is fine. This, if anything, illustrates how flawed her planning and rules are. Because while she’s following the rules and is going to places of supposed isolation, that still isn’t enough to have absolute control. She leaves the bar on the arm of a man she doesn’t even know the name of to avoid being outed, when she’s in the alley with someone who could absolutely out her and she is completely unaware of it.

We don’t see Greta have to acknowledge her lack of control here, so she seems almost arrogant in how much she doesn’t realize this. However, as the show goes on, it's made more and more clear just how aware she actually is. She’s the first person that recognizes Vivienne Hughes as someone to impress, and then proceeds to make herself seen by Vivienne at practice. During Charm School, she still tries to impress Vivienne more than is really necessary for her own sake,  since she is not in danger at Charm School depsite actually being one of the queers they wouldn’t want around. Jo says that they should suck up to her and Greta seems to do exactly that. And it works. 

At the first game, Vivienne notes that Greta is “lovely” where no other girl gets that comment. During Charm School, Greta is able to save Jess from being sent home. Had Greta not made an impression on Vivienne, that may not have been possible. Greta immediately recognizes that she needs to not just be acceptable to this woman, but to be known and viewed as someone pleasant and lovely. It keeps her safe and it keeps people connected to her safe, like Jess in this instance. 

Being seen is important to Greta. It’s the basic key to her survival. She wants to be seen on the arm of man. She wants to be seen by Vivienne. Her plans when she’s done playing baseball is to go to California (with Jo) to be in pictures. She plans on being a movie star, where her appearance and social life would only be more on wide display and up to the approval of her employers, especially in this era of Hollywood and the studio system. She is planning to get into a career that will force her into an even more artificial and performative public image, and it would make her known world wide if she succeeded. The eyes of the world would be on her and she would have to meet their approval. Even given that every moment of her life is already a performance to some degree, it still seems an odd choice for a lesbian who is seeking safety from public scrutiny or persecution. But then again, maybe it's the best choice she could make. 

A handful of actors are mentioned in this season of the show. Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Vivian Leigh, Paulette Goddard, Josephine Baker, Lena Horne, and Judy Garland are all of the names I could find (excluding Hendricks Johnson, who does not exist). Before I get into this point, let me preface this by saying that I am not going to get into specific identities and all of these claims come with varying degrees of certainty from person to person, and I won’t get into who is definitely what and who is just a maybe. I think it's pretty gross to assign labels to dead people and focus too hard on what they possibly did in their private lives. That being said, all of the claims I found were at least somewhat credible and more than just random unsubstantiated rumors. Now, let’s look at these names. 

Cary Grant, Vivien Leigh, Katharine Hepburn, Paulette Goddard, and Josephine Baker all seem pretty credibly to have been some form of queer. We know of specific affairs with most of them that almost definitely happened. There are some claims of Lena Horne being a queer, but I wouldn’t say there’s much proof of that from what I can see. What there is clear proof of is that one of the closest relationships she’s had is her friendship with an openly gay man. And you don’t have to look too far before you start seeing her listed as a “gay icon,” like another notable on this list. Jimmy Stewart probably wasn’t queer, but the studio sure thought he was and made him prove he wasn’t (by making him go to a brothel, yes, Hollywood has always been very fucked). And Judy Garland is Judy Garland. What more needs to be said about Judy. 

Every single actor  that was mentioned in this show (who actually exists) is in some way associated with queerness. Again, I’m not going to sit here and say with absolute certainty who was and wasn’t queer, but these names have that association with them. They’re names that were highly regarded at the time and still are today. They’re very public figures and also ones that are queer either by actually being queer or by their association with queer culture (though not necessarily during this time period). This is the world that Greta wants to get into. 

Now, Greta probably wouldn’t know the extent of the queerness in Hollywood at the time. It wasn’t exactly public knowledge, but given the extent of her travels and the specific places she claims she’s been, it's not impossible that she might have some idea. If she found herself in the right queer circles in, say, Paris or New York, she might have learned some things about certain celebrities or at the very least heard rumors.

Regardless, being a public figure like this would change things for her. It’d open doors to queer circles that these celebrities exist in. Circles that would be safer and more protected than what average queer people have. They have more money and influence. They have notoriety. Cops are much less likely to raid somewhere that the most famous people in the world are going to have queer relationships than they are to raid a bar full of normal queer people. If she were caught as a famous actor, she wouldn’t likely get beaten or worse as a result. She would have money to ensure privacy and independence. And not only would she be protected, people connected to her or associated with her would likely benefit from that status as well. 

This freedom is what is alluring to Greta, and she can get it by becoming extremely public facing, famous, and wealthy. When Vivienne Hughes talks about her own form of independence through wealth (and fixating on public image), it's clear that this is what Greta wants.

Greta asks at least partially because she wants to suck up to Vivienne, like Jo suggested. She might have also been trying to get attention away from Carson and the others taking Charm School less seriously, as Vivienne had been scolding Carson before Greta noses herself into the conversation, but Greta’s interest in the answer seems genuine. She smirks when Vivienne gives her the answer, and you can see her afterward looking to Jo excitedly, and then again still smiling after Vivienne when she’s walking away and can no longer see Greta’s expression.

Now, Greta was always going to take Charm School seriously, but after this, we cut immediately to her following Vivienne and showing off. She makes a point to say that she’s single, hopes that the right man is out there for her, and flirts with Mr. Baker Jr. a little. Whether or not she’s safe, Greta goes out of her way to make herself seem pleasant and available. 

All of this is to make it absolutely clear that Greta actively seeks attention. She wants to be seen and noticed and remembered. It is a very specific and at least partially artificial version of herself that she allows to be seen, but Greta Gill is not someone who wants to go unnoticed or hide herself in order to live the life she wants in safety. Instead, she hides in plain sight, making herself entirely visible, but making sure that it's a false version of herself that people see. The real version is allowed to move about unnoticed. 

And this is actively self preservation, but it wouldn’t be fair to call it just that, because it isn’t just Greta that benefits from her being  noticed. Keep in mind that the entire time she’s been traveling, it's been with Jo. While they’re both gay, Jo is more visibly queer than Greta and in a way that most society wouldn’t easily accept. But if Greta is there, taking the attention, then Jo is less likely to be noticed as anything other than connected to Greta.  If Greta is seen and liked, then Jo’s safe. This sort of protection by association instinct happens in Charm School when Greta saves Jess, and when she distracts Vivienne from correcting Carson too harshly. Greta is completely out in the open, lying about herself, yes, but also exposed so that the other queer people in her life go through with minimal notice. 

It doesn’t always go as well as it does in Charm School. Visibility has its costs, and that’s seen in their first game. While all of the girls put up with sexist comments by the announcer (and racists ones too in Lupe’s case), Greta is the first person to get catcalled. But that makes sense. She’s the most noticeable, not just because she’s the tallest, but because she makes herself noticeable and is always performing to keep attention on her. She waves to the crowd and puts on a show to make herself be seen, and to be seen as pleasant and lovely. Greta is the one actively doing the most for the team’s image, and it's noticed. So the first time when she is up to bat, separated from the rest of her team, she is the one a man decides to target with disgusting sexual comments. 

In front of everyone–her team, the rival team, the crowd of spectators, and all of the people in charge of the league–a random man starts sexually harassing her. Greta tries to smile and perform through it, but she is clearly affected. Not only do we see her struggling to put on a good face, but she strikes out almost immediately. 

And no one does anything about it. 

Greta, who makes a point of making herself seen, of being the one that’s noticed, gets verbally abused in front of a literal crowd, and she doesn’t get the slightest bit of help. People are shocked and disgusted, but no one steps in and saves Greta from being humiliated.

Maybe the saddest part about this is that Greta doesn’t even really seem to expect help. She’s in front of a crowd, but in a completely isolated position when it comes to allies. The most she does to react is stare at the man heckling her, but she doesn’t say or do anything. She doesn't look around for help, she just tries to smile and get through it. She truly does not know what to do, because her way of staying safe has always been to be noticed. Now, being noticed is what made her the target of this man’s catcalls. When she looks him dead in the eye, making it absolutely clear that she’s seeing him, he only continues and makes the comments worse. 

Greta doesn’t actually know what to do when she’s the target like this. Her self preservation instincts don’t help in situations like this, and she’s in a situation where being perceived as anything but pleasant will only make things worse. So she doesn’t try to defend herself. She just gets through it and then moves on. We don’t actually see Greta react to the abuse until it's Jo being targeted.

She doesn’t even let herself show anger until it’s Jo that’s the target. Then, she yells at the man and is the first person to try to stop them. She gets stopped before she can say much, but she is willing to make a scene to protect Jo’s feelings while she wouldn’t do the same for herself. This could be the accumulation of what she just experienced finally building to a point where she has enough, but given how clearly Greta seems to need to protect by putting herself in the spotlight, I don’t think it’s only that. 

The spotlight is not an easy place, but it's where Greta seems to think she has the most control. She’s shown here how untrue that is in this world. She does nothing to defend herself or protect herself, but does speak up as to protect Jo and she’s rewarded for that by having Vivienne reprimand her. She’s told she’s “too much” and needs to be sweeter, but when she was doing exactly that and doing it perfectly, she was allowed to be publicly humiliated. The men were only stopped because Dove finally went to talk to them after Greta made a scene for Jo. And she’s told that she can’t even do that to protect her only friend. 

With this additional public humiliation, Greta does something we haven’t seen her do up until this point. She goes off to be alone. 

Moments where Greta is alone in the show are extremely rare and short, largely because we usually get Greta through Carson’s point of view, but we don’t even really see indications of her being alone often. Where we do get indications that she is alone or going somewhere by herself, it is generally a very unpleasant situation for Greta. In this case, she’s going to cry by herself in the locker room. 

When we see Greta there, it’s because Carson came into the room to put away her catcher gear. We don’t know how long she’s been there or what she’s done between going off and being found. What is clear is that she didn’t want to be seen, for the first time in the show. 

Carson finds her and she quickly tries to hide the fact that she’s been crying and comes up with an excuse for why she’s here. Even when Carson clearly knows that she’s crying and tries to comfort her, Greta can’t really let that happen. Instead of commiserating with Carson, the most vulnerability she allows is admitting that she “really let them get to” her, and saying that when she really wants something it doesn’t seem to work out. When Carson tries to sympathize, Greta turns that around. She starts reassuring Carson at the first inclination of Carson feeling upset.

Greta’s pain and problems are put upfront by the narrative initially, but Greta doesn’t allow that to be acknowledged. She quickly turns the attention on Carson and even wipes Carson’s eye as if she had been the one crying and not Greta. She tries to take back control of her image as the one that reassures and protects and helps. She isn’t the one that needs help. She needs to protect others because that is how she stays in control. By staying in control of her image, she can protect those around her. Looking at Greta’s actions closely makes it increasingly clear why both of those motivations are present as the season continues.

The Rules

Greta and Jo have rules to protect themselves. We don’t know specifically what all of those rules are, but we know some hints. When it comes to her romances, Greta doesn’t act close to them in public. She doesn’t go on dates. She doesn’t go to queer spaces close to home. She doesn’t go places people know about to hook up. She makes sure she’s seen with a man when she starts a relationship. To Carson, she says this last one is a rule to protect herself, but let’s pose this question: when has Greta ever expressed concern for herself and her own safety? 

Because, she hasn’t actually, except in that one moment. Let’s look at what she does do. When she kisses Carson the first time, she leaves quickly and goes home with a random man and pushes back against Carson’s concerned questions, quickly distancing herself. She doesn’t even bring up the events to Carson until they’re practicing and Greta is at bat with Carson catching. She doesn’t seek out Carson and waits for them to end up semi-alone, then asks if Carson got home alright when she was the one that went home with a random man. Then when she and Carson are actually getting together, she constantly makes sure that she and Carson are only alone in places where no one knows about. She won’t even let an owl watch them, and when there is even a hint of someone nearby, Greta leaves first and leaves Carson to follow afterward. 

It does seem paranoid and self preservative, but let’s look at reasons why she starts breaking the rules. When Carson is having a hard time with Lupe, Greta steps in more than once to defend Carson. When Carson is clearly stressed, she starts taking Carson to a known location (Bev’s car) to hook up. She lets Carson talk her into the date and then into going to the bar despite previously saying they were too risky.

Greta may desire to do all of these things and more, but she never gives into the dates or hook ups that break the rules until Carson wants them. She isn’t even asked to help Carson in the Lupe situation, she just does it when she sees Carson having problems. Breaking the rules does eventually overwhelm her until she snaps at Carson for supposedly always coming to Greta with her problems. 

Now, it is absolutely true that Greta and Carson always talk about Carson’s problems, but as the scene in the locker room shows, that’s largely because Greta doesn’t allow otherwise. She is the one always asking Carson about what’s bothering her and trying to fix it, and when Carson shows the slightest sign of trying to do the same, Greta doesn’t allow it. She all but runs from even acknowledging that she could be in pain or danger or might need help. Because Greta doesn’t see herself as the one that gets hurt. 

When Greta eventually tells Carson about Dana, we see this is why she’s been upset and snapped at Carson. She and Carson haven’t been as careful as she thinks they should be and she’s been allowing it. She’s also clearly been falling more and more for Carson, and considering this more than just a short fling. And Carson reminds her of Dana, who had fallen in love with and who was hurt because Greta wasn’t careful. Greta, though, was fine.

Greta’s entire character motivations can really be explained by her intense survivor’s guilt. She was fine, she says. Maybe she wasn’t the one that was put away and tortured in an institution, but Greta is far from fine. 

Greta is obsessed with protecting people around her. People like her. Whether that be Jo who she calls her only real friend. Or Carson who she just met off the street, immediately clocked, and decided she couldn’t leave to fend for herself. Or Jess who is her new roommate and never had to worry about passing until now. Or later Carson again, who she’s started to have genuine feelings for. With her queer friends, she puts herself in prominence to take the attention and protect them. When it comes to her romantic partners, she has all the self imposed rules that she follows to protect them, because when she stopped being careful before, Dana got hurt. And she’s terrified of seeing people she loves, people like her, get hurt. 

The point of the rules isn’t to stop Greta from being hurt. That’s what she tells people, and that might be what even Jo thinks. But in truth, they’re to stop Greta from hurting people. Because that’s what Greta thinks happens when she isn’t careful and in complete control of her visibility. This is all the more clear when breaking the rules does endanger someone.

In Plain Sight

As established, Greta is hardly ever alone in the series. When she is, it’s always in moments of pain, frustration or otherwise negative emotions. When she’s alone, it's always a struggle, as she’s confronting some kind of vulnerability that she doesn’t know how to deal with, and honestly can’t by herself. She’s not good at being alone and doesn’t seem to like it anyway.

Yet at the same time, she cannot be genuine in crowds or public spaces. She is always putting on an act, a performance. But you see her really wanting to drop it. Throughout the season, as her relationship with Carson gets more and more real, we see Greta making more and more public hints at acknowledging it. She makes playful comments at Carson with the entire team around, making Carson wish her luck or saying she “almost got lucky” when she was almost roomed at Carson (it’s supposed to be assumed that she’s talking about the card game she’s playing, but she’s looking at Carson quite obviously) She making very curious “oooh” sounds when Carson is more assertive and almost holds hands with Carson on the bus.

It’s like she almost can’t help herself, but every time she does this, she seems genuinely happy. Even when she is expressing disappointment in not getting to room with Carson there’s a little smirk to her. She enjoys these little moments of publicized honesty, even if there’s no way of anyone being able to see them for what they really are. Actually because of that, she never quite gets to the moment of fully realized joy in them, because they still have to be subtle enough not to be noticed. She gets closer to absolute genuine joy when she’s in relative privacy with those she can be true with, whether than be intimate moments with Carson or just being around the other queer Peaches at home once they’re all out to each other.

These are still rather isolated places, however, or places where she has to be somewhat on guard. There is only one point in the show where Greta is able to be completely honest and drop her performance for five minutes. The result is the moment where I believe is the only place Greta shows absolute, honest, unrelenting joy.

It’s when Greta is at the bar. 

Screenshots don’t really do the scene justice, so I really recommend watching her expressions in this scene or checking out gifs of it (like the set linked here). Greta’s expression here is why I started writing this in the first place. We never see her looking like this at any other point in the season. 

She’s not trying to look charming. She’s not trying to appeal to anyone in this room. She’s not trying to look poised and collected and available, because she’s not and this is the first place we see her where she can be honest about that. She’s here with Carson, with Jo, and surrounded by people like her for the only time in the season. We know that Greta hates being alone, and hates hiding. This is the first time we see her out in the open and not hiding while doing so. These five minutes are the only five minutes we see Greta Gill in absolute bliss. 

And unfortunately, we know how this ends.

The one time we really see Greta getting everything she wants, it's violently taken away, and it results in Jo getting hurt and forced to leave for another team. That’s not even mentioning all of the other people that got hurt or worse at the bar. It validates everything she believes; every concern or fear she’s ever admitted. When she wants something, it doesn’t turn out right. When she isn’t careful, she’s fine, but people she cares about–people like her–get hurt.

The Isolation of Greta Gill

When Greta is alone, it’s always an unpleasant situation. She’s being catcalled while at bat. She’s crying in the locker room. She’s cursing in frustration in Bev’s car after fighting with Carson. In episode 7, we see the absolute worst of this.

After the bar gets raided, Jo leaves. Then Charlie comes and Carson leaves with him. Jess and Lupe are out looking for Esti, meaning that not only does Greta not even have a roommate in this moment, she doesn’t have anyone who understands the depths of what just happened. Her only real friend is gone. Her lover’s gone. The only other people who know that she’s queer and would understand the danger she was just in, are gone. Greta is surrounded by women in this house, and yet she is the most alone she’s ever been and it's at the absolute worst time. 

And it's not just that she’s alone, it's that it doesn’t seem like she’s ever going to get any of them back. She tried to get Jo to leave with her, and Jo refused to go because she was tired of running away for Greta. She knows that Carson isn’t going to give up her comfortable life after the night they just had, and that’s before Carson’s husband showed up and Carson left with him. Any reassurance to Greta that she isn’t a walking time bomb to everyone she cares about has come up hollow at this point. 

Now, before we look at Greta’s reaction to this, let’s look back a little. First, let’s look at how Greta viewed her and Carson’s relationship. To Greta, it was always supposed to be a fling, not a long term relationship. She tells Carson this outright.

After Carson asks Greta if she’s been with a lot of women, and with a lot of married women specifically, Greta tells her that it can be good for her marriage. She doesn’t pose herself as a rival to Charlie, and doesn’t even let that be a possibility here. She tells Carson that at the end of the season, they’ll go their separate ways, and this will just have been a fun fling for them.

You can, however, read into both of their reactions to them. We don’t see them continue to talk after this and it feels somewhat awkward. Carson seems almost disappointed and Greta puts a grape in her mouth which she seems overly focused on eating. Before this subject even came up, Greta seemed to be holding back what she felt. When Carson is laughing, before telling her that she’s beautiful, Greta looks like she’s bracing for something. 

Greta isn’t getting attached. She’s not even letting that be a possibility at this point. We don’t really have an idea of how many women Greta has been with, much less how many of those were married, but she makes it clear that it's a lot. From the way she talks about it, those relationships always seem to be flings. She doesn’t even consider the possibility of anything else with Carson, and the only time we ever hear her talk about being in love is when she’s mentioning Dana. If she’s had serious long term relationships since Dana, then we have no way of knowing but we do know that they clearly didn’t last because Greta’s here. And also because we know that Greta is always on the move. She’s “from all over.” 

So when she’s in relationships like the one she tried to have with Carson, Greta is the third wheel there. She’s not expecting or asking for any kind of commitment. She’s not even going to be staying around. They’re adventures. Everyone at the end will go home with just the memories, but that’s another problem for Greta, isn’t it?

Because the thing about Greta is that she’s from all over. She and Jo have been traveling the world together for a long time. We know that Jo’s grandma kicked her out, but we don’t know specifically what happened with Greta’s family. We do know two things. First, we know that despite Greta initially being hesitant to tell Carson that she’s from New York, she does eventually admit that she is.

We also know that they seem to be trying to avoid Greta’s mom, since even now Greta doesn’t want her to know where they are.

Lastly, we know that Greta was only 17 when she was with Dana, and the fallout of that seemed to put them at some risk and is what lead to her and Jo becoming concerned with following rules and being careful.

They’re running from their pasts as much as they’re traveling to see the world, and their pasts seem to be in New York. That is where they met as kids. That’s probably where Greta’s relationship with Dana happened, and it’s also probably where Greta’s mom still is and probably Jo’s family too. Greta never let herself consider anything more than a fling, because she has to run from what happened in New York. She doesn’t seem to keep in touch with anyone, much less the women she had affairs with because she tells Carson she only has one actual friend. Up until this point, Greta always had Jo along. So even if she could never have a genuine long lasting romantic relationship with a woman and had to constantly move to avoid danger, she always had her very real and strong friendship with Jo. Until Jo refused to go with her. 

With Jo leaving her behind, this is the first time Greta is actually truly alone. Jo was the one relationship that Greta actually let be long term. Jo connected her to her past and knew all of what she was running and hiding from. Jo was always there when Greta was going somewhere. So when Greta leaves in episode 7, know that this is the first time in her life that she is actually alone.

By this point, I genuinely do not think Greta expected Carson to come and stop her from leaving. She was quite literally at a breaking point, and saw herself ruining every relationship she had just by being there. She survived everything, just to end up standing completely alone, and if she attempted to stick around like everything was normal, things would just proceed to fall apart around her and more people would get hurt. That’s what always happens. 

Because Greta doesn’t see the people she helps. She doesn’t really even think about the fact that she saved Jess until Carson brings it up, and even then she doesn’t give herself credit for it. She doesn’t consider that she helped Carson stick around long enough to discover herself and what she wanted. Greta does these things by just performing as she’s supposed to. She doesn’t see that as a choice or a good deed. All she sees is that people get hurt whenever she tries to get something she wants, and in the end, she’s by herself.

Back to New York

So what does all of this mean for Greta in the end? Honestly, I have no idea, but there’s the seed of something there. We know Greta changes her plans of going to California when she gets an offer to work for Vivienne. She decides to go to New York instead, which is notable because not only is she going there alone, she’s probably taking an enormous risk going to New York. 

We don’t know if she’s been there since she left, but it’s probably where the mom she doesn't want to find her is.. It’s probably where Jo’s family is and Dana’s, and all of the bad history she’s spent her whole life running from. She is choosing to go back there, and not only that, she asked Carson to go with her.

Not only was she willing to return there, she was willing to take someone she loves there and have a long term romantic relationship. Before when she tried to go off alone, she was running to isolate herself for the sake of others. Now, she’s going because she genuinely seems to want this job and she’s willing to be with Carson there. Potentially around people who know more about her than any of her social performances could mask. 

But of course, we know that Carson doesn’t go. There’s a bittersweet kind of feeling there, but it does seem to be good for Greta at this moment. Because this is going to be the first time that Greta is truly going off by herself, and she’s doing something that she wants to do. She’s not going there to perform for the pictures or run away from some romance gone wrong. She’s going back somewhere where she and her loved ones had been in danger, because she wants to. Because there's opportunity there that she wants to pursue for herself. This is the first time we see Greta Gill doing something she wants for entirely her own sake, and I do think that for now, she does have to do it alone.

Because her relationship with Carson didn’t just open Greta up romantically. Like Greta had done with her, Carson gave Greta permission to go for what she wanted. Whether that be the possibility of a long term relationship, a career where she’s asked to be herself, or just the ability to face her past and stop running. Regardless of what she wants, she needs to figure that out for herself, alone.

___________________________

Other ALOTO essays:

Lupe, Carson, and Gaydar

Queerness, Contamination, and the Neurosis of Shirley Cohen

Now, as said before, Shirley is immediately established as a character with some form of neurosis. The first scene she’s in, she’s stretching next to Jess and after Jess spits next to her she comments on Jess spreading germs.

After the tryouts, we see her and Jess in the bathroom talking again. Shirley is complaining about her performance and blaming it on the fact that she didn't perform certain rituals while going to hit. This ritual can be seen basically any time throughout the season when Shirley is at bat. Later on, when they arrive in Rockford and Shirley and Carson are roommates, Shirley says that she picks up on the energy of others easily, suggesting that she’s made anxious by other people being anxious.

All of this immediately established Shirley as someone with some very active neurosis going on. She is abnormally afraid of germs. She has rituals she has to perform in order to do something properly. She becomes very affected by other people’s reactions to things, and she’s aware of this. I am largely against diagnosing fictional characters with specific mental illnesses unless that is clearly the point of the text, and I’ll refrain from stating anything outright certain going on with Shirley here. But I will say that as someone who has had obsessive compulsive disorder their entire life, these symptoms feel somewhat familiar. 

Regardless, it's clear that Shirley has anxiety, and it's largely played off for humor. I’m actually largely happy and ok with that. It feels more like laughing at the ridiculousness of the things she’s anxious about more than laughing at her specifically or belittling her for having these issues. I feel like it's an important distinction to make here, because anxiety is largely ridiculous in my experience. It’s something that doesn’t make sense and acknowledging that is important to actually being able to not be affected by it as much. I like that in Shirley and I like that about her eventual arc and her overcoming her fears. But regardless of how it’s portrayed, let’s look at her issues.

Germophobia as it pertains to anxiety disorders (like OCD and other disorders that cause obsessive thoughts) is generally misunderstood. Typically it's not exactly the fear of disease that causes germophobia to manifest as a symptom, but the fear of contamination. That sounds like the same thing, but it really isn’t. A fear of contamination is much broader and germophobia is only one thing under that umbrella. Arguably, Shirley being afraid of the other girls’ energies can be categorized as a fear of contamination. It isn’t a physical illness she’s afraid of, but she’s afraid of being affected negatively by their presence. Another one of the earliest ways you see this fear manifest is when she’s explaining dangers of canned food.

Botulism specifically is the perfect thing to latch onto and be terrified of if you have a fear of contamination, given that it literally comes from contaminated food. Generally though, it's not common if you take the right precautions. Shirley however has decided that the only way to avoid botulism is to avoid anything that even has the slightest possibility of giving her botulism. It's not just dented cans that she avoids, but cans in general, since she doesn’t differentiate here. Dented cans specifically are only brought up by Carson later on. 

Now, this fear of cans seems to be a very deep seeded anxiety for her. It clearly came with her from her life before the Peaches, so we don’t get to see the beginning of that. With persisting anxieties like this, they’re almost never as bad from the beginning as they’ll eventually become. There’s a sort of spiraling and build up that happens over time if the specific anxiety isn’t dealt with and is allowed to persist. We don’t see the beginning of her fear of botulism, but we do see the beginning of another fear she has, and this too falls into the category of contamination.

This is the first time that Shirley says anything homophobic, and it’s not the most blatant of comments, really. It’s more of a remark of Jo being masculine, and while it’s shitty, it’s one comment that she makes and then doesn’t really dwell on in her dialogue. The fear of Jo being queer isn’t what actually convinces Shirley to change the room assignments. If she's afraid of being contaminated by anything here, its the perfume that Carson claimed would trigger her allergies.

Shirley clearly had these thoughts about Jo before this conversation with Carson, and she didn’t seem to have an issue rooming with her until Carson mentioned something about her perfume. And that’s not even getting into the fact that if Shirley and Carson switched, Shirley would be rooming with Jess, who is extremely butch presenting, and she didn’t seem to have an issue with that. Carson herself had to come up with an excuse for why they shouldn't do a one way roommate swap.

Even then, it's clear that queerness isn’t so much an active threat to her at the moment. Shirley goes to see about the room changes herself and talks to Jo about the idea without even being asked to, and specifically says that she wants Carson “safe.” Whether that is safe from the queerness or safe the perfume isn’t clear, but I’m personally leaning toward the perfume, since Carson mentioned it bothering her and in this moment, Shirley doesn’t seem concerned about catching the queer.

However, catching the queer is clearly something that Shirley dwells on for some time, because as the girls are getting settled into the convent, she brings up the topic with Maybelle.

This, my dear readers, is what an obsessive anxiety spiral looks like. This is what it looks like when you have fear brought up (in this case being contaminated with perfume that would harm Shirley) and having it connected to an unrelated thought (Jo being queer) and having your brain combine them and make you very afraid of it.

Shirley had one random thought about Jo being masculine and that turned into her being seen hours later, visibly anxious and worried about Jo being queer and the fact that queerness supposedly spreads. She wasn't afraid of this when she spoke with Carson, but some time between then and now, she considered the fact that she might catch queerness from Jo.

Throughout the show, Maybelle is shown to be ok with her queer teammates and she’s shown to be very close to Jo. It’s very likely that she wouldn’t entertain Shirley’s conversation much here in order to protect Jo, regardless of whether or not she knew that Jo is queer. What can be certain is that she didn’t give Shirley an answer to this that satisfied her enough to stop thinking and worrying about it, because we see days later that Shirley is still concerned about it.

Now, Shirley is bringing this to Carson as if its completely new information, meaning that the comment about Jo on the bus wasn't necessarily meant to indicate that she's queer. Shirley is also clearly obsessing over this, because while fixating on Jo, she ignores that that are other very visibly queer people on the team. Jo was just the one that got brought up, who she made the initial comment about, so she's blind to seeing anyone other than her as the source of contamination here. Jo is the one that she's convinced might make her queer.

So Shirley isn't helped by Maybelle and so she goes to Carson about the issue. I'm not blaming Carson here, but her actions do make things worse. Carson is so concerned about outing herself or Greta that she doesn't really address the concern Shirley has in a way that would make Shirley stop. She just tells Shirley that they'll "get to the bottom of it" and then leaves, probably hoping that Shirley never brings it up again. However, to Shirley, this indicates that she should continue to investigate and worry about it. Because now its not only that she’s worried about catching the gay, its that Carson told her that they’d figure it out because she thinks they need to worry about it. 

And so Shirley continues to worry about queerness.

Days later she pulls Carson aside to show her a newspaper article about two lesbian teachers being arrested. Again, she mentions the supposed fact that queerness spreads and insists that they can’t ignore Jo, because if they do it’ll kill them (which may be literal death or a metaphor for them being turned queer or just inherent doom). 

Carson eventually comes up with a lie that Jo has been sleeping with Dove, and Shirley just immediately accepts that without any evidence. Literally, the first chance she gets to believe anything other than that Jo is queer, she jumps on it and begins coming up with “evidence” to validate the claim. She acts disgusted at the idea of the affair, but it’s apparently also a relief. She doesn’t actually worry about catching the queer again until Jo gets outed after being arrested at the gay bar. Before then, Shirley really believed that there are no queers based on no evidence just because Carson gave her another thing to belief that was comforting. She wants to not worry about it so jumps on the first opportunity not to, and only begins to worry about it again when it's clear that the thing that reassured her wasn’t true. 

Now, Shirley’s reaction to having more or less proof that Jo is queer is interesting. She doesn’t actually seem upset about the idea of gayness. She never expresses any outright disgust at the idea of two women being together. The closest she actually gets is telling Maybelle that Jo could have seen her breast, and the way she says it sounds more as if she’s trying to justify being upset to Maybelle.

The thing that she brings up is that she can’t trust people because they might be queer, and that she’s unsafe around them. She doesn’t really express any thought that they might do anything to her. What she expresses is fear that she will be gay.

This could read as internalized homophobia, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think she does genuinely think that it's something that she can catch and she’s afraid of what that’ll mean for her if she does catch it. She tells Maybelle that she’s worried that Jo saw her breasts (something that is obviously true as Maybelle pointed out) because she doesn’t want to say that she might have caught the gay, because then maybe Maybelle will think that maybe Shirley has caught the gay. 

Now, this is validated when she eventually finds out that Carson is queer and has been with Greta.

Again, its notable that Shirley never expresses any kind of disgust at queerness itself. Especially since she seems very affected when sexuality in a heterosexual context comes up. She's bothered hours after being left alone with Greta's date, Vernon. She's clearly disgusted that Jo and Dove supposedly had sex and were doing it in front of all of their faces. She's even disturbed when she finds out that Maybelle has multiple kids.

When she finds out that Carson and Greta were actively hooking up though, its not that that actually bothers her. It's that they were queer and she had trusted that they weren't.

Like it really should be pointed out that its not that Shirley is upset that the queer girls might have done something to her. She's upset that she might have caught it from them. This is made completely apparent when she eventually overcomes her fears of contamination by eating food from dented cans and kissing Carson.

Once she tests out her fears and learns that she's not going to catch gayness, she's fine with it. She isn't worried that Carson has been her roommate this whole time. She isn't worried that she now knows that others are queer and on the team and in the locker room with her. It was always just that she was afraid of catching it. 

So why is that? Why is that what she's so worried about?

Shirley mentions multiple people in her life telling her that it's contagious. She mentions her cousin telling her this. She mentions her rabbi telling her this. She mentions her mom telling her not to trust women who like sandwiches. Now, I just want to point out that its 1943 and apparently a lot of people are talking to Shirley about queers for some reason. Seems a little weird for the time period. A lot of people are warning Shirley about queers for some reason and the fact that she could become one. Why is that? 

Well, it's 1943 and Shirley Cohen is an unmarried woman who is very good at baseball, and that seems to be the only actual outlet she has.

Let's look at this conversation between Greta and Carson.

Now I don't think playing baseball is the only reason why Jo's grandma said she wasn't a real girl, but the point remains. There is stigma now about woman athletes. In 1943, you bet there was stigma. Hell, the entire purpose of Charm School was to weed out those that might play into that stigma and make them all look like queers.

We don't know much about Shirley's life, but we do know that she was very sheltered. She tells Carson that she's never been in public alone before. She tells Greta that she's never been drunk before. She has apparently never been left alone with a man before, and when she has gone on dates, her mother and aunt went with her.

What we know about Shirley is that she is very good at baseball, she has a serious anxiety disorder, her family members and authority figures in her life feel the need to tell her the dangers of queerness pretty often, and she doesn’t want to go home.

Early on, when the rest of the girls suggest that this isn't legit and they'll be sent home soon, Shirley appears immediately distressed. She later wakes up Carson to talk about those concerns. The way she repeats "Can't go home" is almost automatic and pleading. And then when she says "It's not even my chair," it sounds as if she's repeating a phrase that gets told to her often.

We don’t get any more specifics here about Shirley’s home life, but from the comments she makes throughout, it doesn’t seem healthy and she definitely isn’t happy. The only clear outlet she has is baseball, and it seems like maybe her family doesn’t think she should be playing it. 

Almost immediately after she mentions her home in this scene, she brings up the article in the newspaper the girls read about their league “destroying womanhood.”

Shirley is the only one that seemed actually bothered by what the paper had to say. The others comment on it being offensive or ridiculous, but Shirley is the only one that actually expresses worry that it might be accurate. 

This happens well before she starts worrying about queers on the team. She isn’t worried about the other girls here or that they'll make her look bad, she’s worried about her involvement in the destruction of womanhood. She’s worried about what that’ll mean for her, and if it’ll send her home. And she’s probably worried about what will happen to her after she goes home. 

But still, why is Shirley so concerned about whether or not her family thinks she’s queer. What will happen to Shirley if she comes home after catching the gay after she was involved in the destruction of womanhood? 

Well, in episode 5, Greta tells Carson about what happened to her first girlfriend Dana when they were caught together.

I’m not sure if this needs to be explained, but “put her away,” means they put her in a mental institution and left her there to rot. And to be clear, this was not an unheard of practice. It happened to women throughout history the moment their family members thought they were difficult or just wanted them out of the way. And it definitely was not uncommon for it to happen to queer women, or women just expected of being queer. 

Now Shirley is already neurotic, and her family already feels the need to warn her about being too dykey. And looking back on her conversation with Maybelle, she was apparently told that the only “cure” for being gay was a lobotomy. I see people laughing at that comment, but it's frankly horrifying to me. This show takes place in 1943. In 1941, Rosemary Kennedy (the sister of JFK) was lobotomized for being a bit too difficult for her family’s preference and acting like a 23 year old. Most people that were lobotomized were women, and they really didn’t have to have a reason to do it. Greta’s girlfriend Dana was probably lobotomized, and Greta will probably never know if that’s what happened to her or not. 

So with Shirley we have a woman who is good enough at baseball to have been scouted and to have made it onto a professional baseball team, who also has a family that is overbearing and shelter her to the point where she’s never actually been alone, and who feel the need to remind her not to look like a queer or she’ll get a lobotomy, because that’ll be the only way to fix her. And she desperately doesn’t want to go home. 

So when I say I am compelled by Shirley through all of her homophobia and that I adored her throughout the entire show, know that I mean that with every inch of my fucking heart. Because here we have a snapshot of a woman with some very apparent mental health problems, whose life has only exacerbated those problems, and who constantly has the threat of the worst thing that will happen to her hanging over her head. And in the end she actively chooses to face those fears and risk that, because the risk is better than being afraid of it forever.

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Other ALOTO essays:

Lupe, Carson, and Gaydar

Greta Gill: Visibility and Isolation