#ffm2014

14. Orphan Black - Cosima and Delphine Do I need to say anything?

15. Witches of East End - Alex and Joanna Okay, so imagine you’re watching this cheesy fun show about witches on Lifetime. As you’d expect, it’s a bit soapy, but also female-centric, so it balances out. The main characters are the four women of the Beauchamp family, matriarch Joanna, her sister Wendy, and her daughters Ingrid and Freya. Joanna (Julia Ormond) is apparently incredibly powerful, but mostly just seems to worry about her daughters now, who’ve been cursed to die and be reborn continuously, and it’s her curse to watch that happen. In this current cycle, she’s decided to not tell them about their magical past in the hopes that it’ll keep them alive for longer, so as the show begins, they have no idea about their powers. The sister Wendy (played awesomely by Mädchen Amick) can shapeshift into a cat and has about as many lives as one. She’s charismatic and fun-loving but things between her and Joanna have been frosty for a while. Freya’s caught up in a love triangle between two hunky brothers, the two regular male characters on the show, and Ingrid’s a librarian who, once she’s learned about her powers, is surprisingly greedy for more. All right, so the stage is set. With so many women, the initial hope’s always that one is going to be revealed as queer from the start, but that didn’t happen here. All right, it’s an enjoyable enough show on its own and surely Wendy’s going to reveal a f/f fling or maybe Ingrid’ll start something up, whatever. In the of the second season, as our heroes are deep in trouble, they need an incredibly badass hunter. Oh look, Joanna knows someone. She takes Wendy off to the streets of NYC and just magically zones in on a woman. Meet Alex (Michelle Hurd), successful hedge fund manager. She’s not too happy to see Joanna and rejects her plea for help and it’s clear there’s something personal there. At this point I am intrigued, but then I’m intrigued pretty darn often, so pfft. No need to get my hopes up. With no help from her, the Beauchamps continue to ineffectually plan and bicker, but hey, she’s showed up after all, no more business suit but jeans and hair pulled back. She’s still short with Joanna, but obviously someone’s gotta help them. Then, we get a flashback! In a previous life of Freya’s, Joanna introduces her to her “friend” Alex. So at this point, I’m no longer just suspicious, I am sure. And then we go back to the present where they bicker and call each other stubborn as they try to not very subtly protect each other. Even though this was Alex’s first appearance on the show, Ormond and Hurd played it so well, they really did seem like a couple of exes. As they finally did go out hunting, the scene above happened! And so, okay, I was like 99% sure, but to have it confirmed.  What makes this a favorite is how even in just one episode they managed to put together a good story. Alex ended up staying for just one more, and they had a really good couple of conversations in the next ep, but this scene remains my favorite. I know WoEE’s been cancelled but I can hope that if it had continued, Alex would have returned.

I doubt there are a lot of femslash fans left who haven’t seen this moment yet. Freaking Scully and Kalinda making out? Yes, please. Having shipped Stella and Reed Smith (did we ever discover onscreen if her first name was Tanya) from the start, I had only a little more expectation of anything happening than in a typical show. One the one hand, they already had a different lesbian character and the series seemed too short to let it branch off into this, and well, it seemed too good to be true. Wishful thinking, really. How many times have we shipped main characters with chemistry only to have nothing happen? On the other hand, Stella seemed liked she’d definitely be up to it, Anderson plays her with a certain lazy sexuality, and the characters did seem to hit it off. Before the second season started, we had a suggestive promo pic from this already, so people were gearing up for it. When it did finally happen…I’m not going to say it was queerbaiting, but it was a bit anti-climactic. It did start up because of a guy (though to get rid of him, not put on a show!) but it obviously did end up holding some significance for them both. It was actually the post-kiss staring and Reed Smith’s definitely affected wiggling that was my favorite part, actually. And I think from the scene after, we know something could have happened. Here’s hoping we’ll get it in the next season.

26 Favorite Femslash Moments of 2014 17. Hart of Dixie - Crickett and Jaysene After years of being married to a man the whole town suspected of being gay, Crickett surprised everyone by coming out herself in the middle of her vow renewal, unable to hide any longer. In this next episode, she’s still reeling in the aftermath, but determined to live true to herself, being more open with her friends about being a lesbian, watching The L Word for tips, and deciding to date. Unfortunately, she can’t find any other lesbians and really doesn’t even know how to begin to look. Meanwhile, Jaysene has been brought in to train the town’s motley group of volunteer firefighters. She’s tough but competent, and is of course being fought over by two of the guys. She turns down any invitations for dates, though, saying she already likes someone. This being a season premiere, there was so much going on, and I didn’t draw the logical conclusion I should have, but that just made this sudden scene that much better. It’s so simple, just someone asking someone else out to dinner, but how many times has it involved two women and happened with so little angst or hype or buildup? It’s just so cute, with Jaysene’s earlier forcefulness evaporating in the face of her nerves, Crickett just about keeling over in happy surprise and their twangy accents and that darned strummy guitar starting up, like it was just the start of any old romance.

26 Favorite Femslash Moments of 2014 18. The Bletchley Circle - Millie and Susan I considered leaving this one out, it’s by the far the least overt moment on the list, and really, it’s an ending. Whatever could have happened between them happened long ago and this was just for closure. And whatever could have happened was subtext at most. But it’s about solid a confirmation as we’d get about that past. I love the show and I’ve loved them from the start when their opening scenes were so suggestive but then we cut immediately to a future where relations were strained. They’d barely talked or even communicated and it turned out that they’d planned to do so much together but Susan abandoned the plan and Millie, and now she’s married with kids and the implications were quite clear. Whatever she felt for Millie hadn’t been strong enough to compete with her fears and the appeal of a more “normal” life. But no! We get this treasure of a scene that confirms it was the opposite, she felt too much. It’s obviously too late for it to affect anything but it changes so much for Millie and she acknowledges that. It’s a complete shift in her thinking too, after all, she would have assumed the same as we had, that Susan picked the other life over her because she wasn’t enough. For the show to include this moment before Susan left was so significant.

26 Favorite Femslash Moments of 2014 19. Faking It - Amy and Karma Ahh. Faking It. When MTV first announced it was making a show in which two best friends pretended to be lesbians for popularity, the reception was not...positive. Then the first ep aired and it was clear that at least one of the girls maybe wasn't pretending so much. So suddenly instead of the tired old myth where girls were only together for attention, this a TV show with a queer main character, and we're about to see how she deals with it. It is still a teen show, and on MTV at that, so relationships are at the center of it, namely Amy's realization that she is kind of in love with her best friend, who is happily crushing on a guy. That's one of the iffier parts of the series, Karma actually playing into that harmful trope where she IS pretending to be a lesbian to seem hotter to a guy, and that guy has outright stated that he IS more interested because he views her as a challenge. Gross behavior all around, and then they go further by arranging this threesome. But from the way the show's gone about things, in a mostly encouraging way, we're assuming it won't be a straightforward matter and that it'll be actually reveal some things about the triangle. At this point, while Amy's not only accepted she's in love with Karma but deciding to do something about it, we're also slooowly beginning to see some signs that it may not be entirely one-sided. After the two rehearse for the threesome adorably, we finally get to this scene, and it is focused entirely on Amy and Karma, and Karma is stunned, at what Amy's wearing, at Amy's approach, at the kiss. Had this been a fake dating romcom, as at least I was hoping it would be, this would have been the perfect midpoint where the oblivious half suddenly becomes aware of their feelings.

26 Favorite Femslash Moments of 2014 20. Jane the Virgin - Luisa and Rose This was only the second episode, so it might seem unfairly ranked above some of the other moments below, but I just really liked it. At the time, I wasn't expecting much, I knew a main character's sister would be a lesbian and the doctor who messed up everything and there'd be an ex in the picture, but that's it. That ex turned out to be Bridget Regan, though, so interest immediately soared, but I still figured there'd be some bickering and tension at most, but not much screentime for them. I did not expect that in this second episode, we'd get both a shift from ex back to lover and the reveal that Rose was Luisa's stepmom! Fun. But really, as the fall season started last year, there was already this general anger and hurt at the spate of recent queer lady TV deaths, so it was lovely to see my dash swept away in a wave of amused and excited surprise (if you'd followed the Legend of the Seeker fandom at all, you'd know just how many people wanted Bridget Regan to kiss a woman) after this scene. And don't get me wrong, the show was already so great and watchable, I'd have it as favorite new series of the season even without Rose/Luisa, everyone keeps saying that's just extra toppings on a yummy sundae, and that's true, but I like that we do get a queer storyline. Yeah, it's not NECESSARY, but what is? They chose to go with it and in a ridiculous but genre-appropriate way and they get all my support for that. Okay, Rose, until that point, hadn't had much to do except have that hair and be played by Bridget Regan but our poor Luisa! She messed up, yeah, big time, no one's going to disagree, but in the same way that Jane is a certain kind of archetypal romance lead, strong-willed and intelligent and so good of heart, Luisa turns out to be one too, the hapless, adorable, endearing heroine who the suave, beautiful, in-control Rose somehow can't resist. And even in this short scene, we see there's actually a lot of depth and history to their relationship, with Rose worried about Luisa's drinking and apologizing for and knowing she's hit a nerve. Of course, there are a whole bunch of plot developments to follow (some kind of iffy), but at this point, I'd been eager to see how it'd all play out. (Bonus: these tags for why I continue to love this ship.) (Extra bonus! This incredibly fun fake trailer for a movie I would pay a lot of money to see.)

26ish Favorite Femslash Moments of 2014 22b. Waterloo Road - Vix and Nikki Yeah, putting up another clip from this pair. I wasn't entirely sure about it, I don't want to be putting up multiple moments for all the series where I can't decide my favorite scenes, and I don't know if I want the exception to be THIS storyline, which handled itself so poorly in the second half, but this scene is pretty significant. Consider it a bonus, if you will. Before this clip, Vix got a gift for Nikki and presented it to her in a small box. Afraid it was going to be a ring with proposal attached, Nikki was pretty relieved when it turned out to be just a bracelet. But, the more she thinks on it, the more she realizes she's actually disappointed. Cue this scene. I like that Nikki's so invested, and so happy after. I still can't believe the eps that follow. (There's a lot of sudden panic and backing and then she sleeps with the absolute worst guy, and yeah. This is from ep 9x12, just pretend the storyline ends here.)