Article by Pam Cole

APRIL 20, 2005—After having teased us and taunted us and driven us steadily insane with frustration throughout this second season, the writers and producers of The L Word have rewarded us with the finest lesbian love scene ever filmed in the episode entitled "Late, Later, Latent." Central to the success of this scene, and indeed the season, was the lovely Laurel Holloman, blush with her first pregnancy, radiant as any woman with child would be. But what actress with child has ever committed such acting, such presence, such unabashed revelation of her blooming body on camera? And, in an unprecedented display of commitment to character, she performs a sex scene in late stage pregnancy (a lesbian sex scene, no less)-that alone should be awarded an Emmy.

This is not the first sex scene Holloman (who plays Tina) acted during her pregnancy, but it by far eclipses her earlier, tentative interaction with Rachel Shelley who plays Tina's new girlfriend. Shelley showed herself as a true heterosexual, uncomfortable kissing a woman, especially (and who can blame her) a heavily pregnant woman. But the passion that flares between Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina in this episode stirred from the combination of Beals' and Holloman's innate chemistry, a history of trust and intimate contact on the show, and Holloman's courage and willingness to plumb and reveal the sexuality of a woman ripe with child. Holloman seems to criss-cross the line between reality and acting, entwining the two in her performance, leaving us to wonder-was this a performance?, in a way that only the finest actors can do. (Let it also be said that Beals, as the consummate scene partner, was right there with her on every beat, supporting and pushing. Beals was shining all on her own, but this article is about Holloman.)

For most of season two, writers have strangely limited Tina's voice, giving her only sketchy dialog and leaving Holloman with heavy sighs, rolled eyes, and skewed glances to achieve her objective. (Are pregnant woman too tired to speak or learn lines? Can it be that Tina has simply had nothing to say until now? We know that Tina is apt to store up her thoughts and demands lots of time "to think about it.") But that did little to impair Holloman's performance in this episode, when she hoisted an entire 4-minute scene on the backs of two short phrases: "You smell so good" and "Touch me here." That was all she needed to say. She let her skill as an actress and her physical presence say the rest.

Holloman, a self-professed bisexual who is now "committed to a man," has described previous onscreen make-out sessions with Beals as "delicious." We can only believe that this scene's kisses were the most delicious of all, as they were for an audience that has anxiously anticipated Bette and Tina's reconciliation since the traumatic end of season one. As actresses, Beals and Holloman patently expressed the months of their characters' longing and aching with those lips, and then with their bodies. With only partial, tasteful nudity and lots of heavy breathing, director Tony Goldwyn crafted a scene as powerfully sexual as any male porno flick.

Holloman's actual pregnancy and Tina's hastily scripted one added untold levels of dimension to the intensity of sexuality between Bette and Tina. Is Bette revelling in Tina's body, a passion long-missed and perhaps never to be known again? Is she taking comfort in Tina's arms, salving the deep pain of separation? Or is she finally being allowed to freely express her feelings for the unborn child, a child conceived in love and then lost, only recently regained. Bette makes love to mother and child in an exquisite display of complexity never before seen on the screen:

A lesbian ex-lover makes love to the pregnant lesbian mother of the unborn biracial daughter they both created through planning, dreaming, and the miracle of artificial insemination. Add to that the sweet, sexual reconnection of a long-term couple, now long separated by time, loss of trust, denial, and new lovers.

What you have is one great story. And one, despite its complexity, not so different from the real lives of lesbians, which is why we love it so much.

Season two has been a ride—bumpy, confusing, graced with moments of brilliance and beauty that kept us in tow: Jenny having her hair cut by Shane, transforming before our eyes; Bette on her knees in the lawyer's office, begging Tina's forgiveness; Shane and Alice gently putting a sobbing, drunken Bette to bed; sparks flying from Shane and Carmen whenever they are in a room together; Bette vehemently pleading her case for inclusion in the baby's life; Alice and Dana "finally" making love. Last night, they got it right again, in a beautifully produced scene surely destined to become a classic in lesbian film.

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