Sweet jesus. I planned on getting back to my ritual of doing L Word recaps each week but my level of frustration with this show has reached all new levels. I don't know if I, or my tv, will survive a full season. I'm going to try for the moment but totally reserve the right to just watch Grey's Anatomy instead.

The new season kicks off 6 months after the season 2 finale. Tina and Bette are still together, Shane and Carmen are still together, Alice is fucking psycho, Dana and Lara (or is it Laura?) are together, Jenny is still crazy and back to being not cute with long hair, and for some reason Helena is still on the show.

- Bette and Tina have to go through a second-parent adoption so Tina can be baby Angelica's second, legal parent. The next step in this process is to talk to a state adoption person who clearly hates lesbians, liberals and children. Perfect job placement there. Child-Hater is quite concerned that Tina & Bette's child will not know what a man is. Because clearly L.A. turned into a lesbian paradise without absolutely no men anywhere in sight. But let's move beyond that predictable social worker thinking lesbians somehow manage to live their entire lives without men element and instead talk about Tina & Bette's parenting philosophies. They include attachment parenting which means they never, ever let the child be without human contact, not baby proofing the house, not even bothering with having a crib (being alone in a crib would interfere with the prime directive of always having human contact) or baby toys about. Now I know this is California and all but why would you not do everything in your power to make sure you seemed as capable and competent and wonderful and text book perfect parents? I mean you don't have to buy into it all but why would you want to be as weird as possible? Because this is a soap opera that must take everything so far over the top it's just not funny anymore. Whatever.

Although they don't believe in baby toys in their house (the child was playing with a pot and a wooden spoon when the social worker visited) they take Angelica to a musical playgroup and invite everyone, including the single father that has eyes on Tina and I predict Tina will be attracted to in 4.3 episodes, to Angelica's 6 month birthday party. Bette hires the music playgroup leader to play at the party which pisses Tina off because they're poor now. Bette hasn't worked since the museum fired her (thanks to Helena). Being poor though is not apparently the worst of their problems. Their sex life has gone to shit and they're seeing a therapist to try and revive it. There is a sex scene involving the two of them later but I was distracted at the time so obviously it wasn't very hot.

- Helena (why is she still on this show?) visits a tarot card reader who impresses her by knowing that she's buying a movie studio. The card reader also lets her know that she'll soon be sleeping with a creative, passionate, bisexual brunette who drives a blue car. That's pretty impressive for a tarot card reading. You know who is a creative (writer), passionate (psycho stalker), brunette (if you squint really hard), bisexual who drives a blue car (blue mini cooper to be exact)? Alice. Apparently Alice and Helena have been hanging out quite a bit in the six months that Alice has become a stalker. It kind of makes sense. Oh I haven't adequately addressed Alice's stalker-ness have I? No. In the course of this episode she made a very uncomfortable scene when the whole group was discussing euphemisms for the female anatomy and she "quoted" things that Dana supposedly used to say such as "No one can touch my (insert euphemism of your choice here) like you Alice." She also pursued Dana in a high speed car chase across the streets of Los Angeles, stood outside the window and watched Dana and Lara (or is it Laura?) have sex, and lit candles at an alter to Dana, complete with life sized cardboard cutout, in her apartment. I guess that's the advantage of a semi-famous ex, you don't have to make your own cardboard cutouts. So yeah, psycho stalker applies.

- Jenny, who spent last season doing weird strip shows and cutting herself, is visiting/staying with her mother and step-father in Skokie, IL. Why? Don't know. The best I can tell she's doing it so she can harass her parents by being in therapy and being a lesbian. And also maybe writing a story about it? Again, don't know. I do know that she picks up a butch woman named Moira, takes her back to her parents where they fuck loud enough to wake the parents up. They then pack up Jenny's stuff and Jenny and Moira head to LA together. I wouldn't think that being screwed (um literally) and screwed (um, just being a trick that would piss her parents off) would be the basis for a relationship and cross country move but apparently I'd be wrong.

- In the six month hiatus Kit and her son somehow bonded. He's now giving her medical exams. That's unethical you know. You're not supposed to treat your family. B tells me that all the time when I ask why she doesn't want to be my doctor. He ends up diagnosing her as being menopausal. The most important part he plays though is to not-so-subtly refer to baby Angelica as Tina's baby. Good of him to carry over the Ossie Davis' character's homophobia from the past two season. Next week Bette and Tina will want him to be the constant male in Angelica's life to appease the social worker but he'll remind them that he doesn't believe in gay adoption. I don't believe in George Bush's presidency but there he is in the White House nonetheless so maybe Kit's son means he doesn't support gay adoption.

- Shane is meeting Carmen's family finally but not in the "I'm dating your daughter" way but in the "Latinos don't think about gay people so they won't notice that I'm such a lesbian and Carmen can't keep her hands off me" way. In the latter capacity Carmen's family loves Shane, tells her they're sure she'll soon have a boyfriend and gives her a dress to wear to some cousin or niece's quincenero. None of that really matters though. What matters is that Shane looks like she's been on a 3 day meth bender because she has huge raccoon eyes and this weird curl thing going on with her hair and she's so freaking skinny.

And that, in a nutshell, was The L Word this week. Welcome back.