by Jennifer Matos

This week’s “’L’ is for Link” segment takes us down a little path called “Memory Lane”. This week, we take a look at the Chart connections for “Dana Fairbanks”.

With a smile that could make you melt, a laugh that was markedly contagious and an intensity that could take your breath away, “Dana Fairbanks” (Erin Daniels), stole and broke the hearts of many L Word fans.

Dana Fairbanks, played by actress Erin Daniels was introduced as an up and coming professional tennis player. Afraid to lose commercial sponsorships because she was convinced that “sponsors aren’t exactly clamoring to have their stuff repped by big ol’ lezzie tennis players”, Dana initially chose to stay in the closet. With only her doubles partner “Harrison Landy” (Landy Cannon), on her arm, no one was the wiser about her sexual identity. No one, that was, except for her closest friends.

It wasn’t just the loss of commercial sponsorships that Dana feared. Through watching the character of Dana Fairbanks grow and develop, viewers learned that most of Dana’s reluctance in coming out, being out and staying out had a great deal to do with fear. A truly loveable character who awkwardly fumbled through her affairs of the heart, Dana was afraid of losing the love and respect of her family. Her mother, “Sharon Fairbanks” (Susan Hogan) made her opinion on her daughter’s attraction to the same sex when she told her “We all have feelings for our girlfriends, Dana. It doesn’t mean you have to act on them.” We learned in a vignette that Dana’s mother had a lesbian encounter in her youth that embedded these beliefs into the message that she shared with her daughter.

It is with the help of her friends, the frequent fliers of “The Planet”, that Dana decided to take a chance, a deep breath, and a dive into risking her heart to love. Her first on-screen foray into love was when she experienced a crush on “Lara” (Lauren Lee Smith), a sous chef at “The Planet”, who Dana—in true Dana fashion—referred to as a “soup chef”. In perhaps one of the most humorous episodes of the series, and one that is telling of what this group of friends will do for each other, the ladies executed a plan to decipher Lara’s sexual identity using everything from coordinated cell phone calls to “Shane’s” inquiry to Lara about figs. Eventually, Dana and Lara became an item, but the fact that Dana was unwilling to come out of the closet caused a rift between them, ultimately ending in their separation.

Dana did end up revealing the truth about her sexuality, won a “Get Out and Stay Out” ad campaign and accepted an award from the Human Rights Campaign in Palm Springs. It was there that she met “Tonya” (Meredith McGeachie), who the friends immediately took a disliking to. Tonya basked in the glow of Dana’s newfound popularity and was the most dominant personality of the pair. Tonya did the unthinkable to end Dana’s relationship with “Mr. Piddles”, her cat. After the death of Mr. Piddles, Dana proposed marriage to Tonya, much to the dismay of her friends. The impending nuptials prompted Dana to approach her family.

Meanwhile, Dana’s closest friend, “Alice Pieszecki” was coming to the realization that she was falling in love with her best friend. Soon, they confronted each other about their true feelings as they clumsily had secret rendezvous’ anywhere that they could. Fully aware of Dana’s relationship and engagement to Tonya, the pair even went to the great lengths of establishing “ground rules” to adhere to while they were in close proximity. With Alice’s help, Dana prepared to break things off with her fiancée and over bearing manager. Before she could do that, Tonya announced that she was taking off with Melissa Rivers! Although Alice and Dana experienced fun and frivolity in the early stages of their relationship, the end of season two presented some problems for the couple.

Now, if you are an L Word fan who hasn’t seen season three yet, you should consider this the end of the article.

The season three opener confirmed the fact that the pair had split up and Dana had returned to the “soup chef”. Despite the fact that they seemed to have separated for the best, neither is doing well when we reached them in season three. We see Alice on a downward spiral after the breakup, and Dana’s relationship with Lara isn’t as simple as she had hoped it would be. To complicate matters further, Dana had been diagnosed with cancer and although Dana valiantly fought the disease, it costs her life. Throughout the most crucial moments in Dana’s failing health, Lara was in Paris and Alice was watching over her former lover. The final scenes of Dana’s life, portrayed by actresses Hailey and Daniels are wrenching and extremely difficult to watch, but done very beautifully. When Lara returned from Paris—too late—the “Chart” takes on a new link when Alice and Lara became intimate.

In real life, Erin Daniels identifies as “straight”. At last report, she was said to have a boyfriend who resides in Paris.