Man, I take a while in getting to my point, don't I? It's the English major in me...gotta set everything up first. Anyway....
Grace's stepsister is Jessie, sweetly played by a delicately-pretty young actress named Evan Rachel Wood. I'm not sure exactly how old Jessie is, I'm guessing 14 or 15. In last year's story arc she battled anorexia...so far this year she hasn't had much to do.
However. In the ep that aired the week before last, Jessie went out on her first date, with a guy named Tad (ew). The date was engineered by Tad's rather energetic friend Katie (played by Mischa Barton from The Sixth Sense), who seemed to display an awfully big interest in Jessie. At a party, Tad tried to put the moves on Jessie, who pushed him away...he persisted, whereupon Jessie was "rescued" by Katie. Later that night, Jessie had a conversation with her mother wherein she expressed concern that she felt no desire to kiss Tad, a boy she thought she liked. Hmmm, says I. Her mother's reaction was, it'll happen for you when the time is right. Okay, I'll buy that. But then, towards the end of the ep, there was a bit of intense conversation between Jessie and Katie (Katie seems very intense by nature), with Katie offering to set up another date with Tad and Jessie demurring, followed by some intense looking. In particular, after the talk was over and Jessie was walking away, she took a long look back toward Katie that really made me go hmmm. I know that look.
So I tuned in again this past week to see what was up. Unfortunately I got a phone call just as the show started and I missed most of it. Here's what I did see at the end: a bit of an argument--apparently there was another girl involved, for some reason Katie couldn't be "friends" with both her and Jessie, so Katie tells Jessie, "I choose you." All of a sudden I'm getting a serious W/T vibe, I'm not sure why. Then Katie slowly reaches out her hand, and Jessie somewhat hesitantly takes it, and I swear I think they were trying to do a "Hush"! I really really do. Unfortunately the moment didn't begin to think about beginning to think about starting to being to think about approaching the massive intensity of the hand-hold in "Hush"...but it was a sweet scene. And then Jessie got a little smile on her face (think Willow after "I am, you know...yours") and said, all kind of dreamy Southern-belle-like, "Listen to the rain." It was um, raining outside.
So I'm like, okay, something's going on here. Just to be sure I wasn't seeing the world through dyke-colored glasses, I took a quick look at some O&A message boards, and yes, people were picking up on it (and hey, the reaction I saw was positive!). There was definite major subtext, and I feel certain, absolutely certain, that the writers and producers of this show have been paying attention to the W/T storyline and are trying to take a cue from it. Unfortunately, given what I said earlier about the show being saddled with clichés, I don't exactly have high hopes for this relationship following along similar lines. If I had to make a prediction, it would be: they develop this for a bit, eventually there's a kiss (February sweeps, anyone? Though they can't really hype it too much, or attempt to titillate male viewers, given the young age of the characters involved), after which Jessie decides that this isn't right for her, she really does want to kiss boys, she just isn't ready. Whereupon Katie, the real lesbian, promptly disappears from the show forever.
But who knows? This could be a chance to see if W/T have had any real impact on mainstream TV drama. I'm going to keep a close eye on this storyline as it progresses, and I'll keep you guys informed--watch this thread for updates!
Editing because I forgot to say that the show airs Fridays at 10 PM on ABC. They also show reruns on Lifetime, but I'm not sure when.
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Night and day I dream of making love to you now, baby
Love-making onscreen, impossible dream
[This message has been edited by Dazey (edited December 09, 2001).]