The L Word wiki
Register
Advertisement
The L Word wiki

The timeline of The L Word and Generation Q.

Where there are contradictions within the shows, precedence is given to statements made on-screen by the characters over physical date references (i.e. precedence is given to the writers over the set designers/prop masters).

Before The L Word[]


Year Events before The L Word
(pre-2003)
1948
1951
1961
1968
  • 17-year-old Sharon Fairbanks is a competitive dressage rider; she kisses her female best friend but is rejected.[1]
1969
1973
1979
1980
1988
  • 8-year-old Shane has a crush on Tiffany Gardner and realizes she is gay.[3]
  • Howie Fairbanks is born in Orange County, California, to Sharon and Irwin Fairbanks; 16 years before "Looking Back" (TLW 1x11).
1989
  • A young Jenny Schecter is gang raped by a group of older teenage boys in Skokie, Illinois.[4][5]
  • 9-year-old Shane is abandoned by her mother and put into foster care.[6]
  • 16-year-old Dana attends tennis camp and falls in love with another girl "Ralph".[3][7]
1990
  • 10-year-old Shane runs away from her foster family and ends up living in a church shelter in Austin, Texas.[8]
1991
  • Bette is an undergraduate student at Yale University. She switches her major from comparative literature to art history after being inspired by Pippa's senior thesis.[9]
  • Bette was originally said to be an undergraduate student at Yale in 1985 in "Lifesize" (TLW 3x06), but this was retconned to 30 years before "Light" (GQ 2x07) in Generation Q.[10]
  • Bette tries to reconnect with her mother Maxine but regrets it; 30 years before "Lobsters, Too" (GQ 2x05).
1992
  • At Yale, Bette has a boyfriend who she imagines is her female art history professor when they have sex; Bette realizes she is gay.[11]
  • Bette sleeps with another woman for the first time in her junior year.[12]
  • Alice and her boyfriend Greg are in a college rock band called Butter, and Alice's attraction to their bass guitarist Tayo leads her to realize she is bisexual.[3]
1994
  • Bette is an MFA student at Yale and shares a house with undergraduate student Kelly Wentworth. Kelly was originally said to have rejected Bette's advances around 20 years before "Least Likely" (TLW 6x02), which would put the year around 1988, but this was retconned in Generation Q.
  • Bette attends a lecture series by Allyn Barnes[8] and is inspired to pursue a career in the arts.[13] Bette's master's thesis is about one of Allyn Barnes's earthworks.[8]
1995
  • Bette begins working for The Drawing Center in Manhattan, New York.[15]
  • Alice begins working for LA Magazine in Los Angeles, California.[15]
1996
  • Bette moves to Los Angeles and opens her own gallery.[15] She meets Alice and they date for 6 weeks[16] in 1996.[17]
  • Bette meets Tina Kennard at an art opening in Bette's gallery;[3] 7 years before "Pilot" (TLW 1x01).
  • Bette breaks up with Alice to pursue Tina.[15][17]
  • Shane and Clive take to prostitution on the streets of Los Angeles for six months;[18] one of Shane's customers pays for her to go to hairdressing school.[19]
  • Alice gets her hair done at a salon and meets assistant hairdresser Shane. Alice asks Shane out for coffee so as to get gossip about the celebrities who frequent the salon.[20]
1999
  • Alice is hired to interview tennis player Dana. She invites Dana to Bette and Tina's Millennium Y2K party, where Dana meets Alice's other friends including Shane and Kit.[21]
  • Jamie Chen is a student at the University of Southern California.[22]
2000
  • Bette closes her gallery and becomes the Director of the California Arts Center; four years before "Labyrinth" (TLW 2x05).
  • Felicity Adams is an undergraduate student at Howard University; 20 years before "LA Times" (GQ 1x04).
  • Now a superstar artist, Pippa publishes an op-ed in The New York Times calling the art world racist; she is blacklisted and disappears from the art scene.[2]
2003
  • Tina quits her job as a film studio executive, and Bette and Tina start trying to get Tina pregnant using Sean Heaney's sperm; around 6 months before "Pilot" (TLW 1x01).[23][24]
  • Robin's fiancée, Claybourne, cheats on her on their wedding day.[16]

The L Word[]

Year Events in The L Word
(2003 to 2009)
2003
  • The L Word season one begins.
    • One month passes between parts one and two of the two-part "Pilot" (TLW 1x01), as Tina is on a new ovulation cycle.
    • Tina's insemination in "Let's Do It" (TLW 1x02) is successful; this would have been around November 2003.
2004
2005
2006
2008
2009
  • The L Word season six ends.
    • Jenny commits suicide[32] on January 18, 2009.[33]
    • Jenny's death takes place three months after the Lez Girls wrap party at the end of "Loyal and True" (TLW 5x12).[34]
    • Bette, Tina and Angie move to New York.

In between[]

Year Events in between The L Word and Generation Q
(2010 to 2019)
  • Shane leaves Los Angeles and opens salons in Paris and New York.[35]
  • Bette and Angie move back to Los Angeles.
  • Bette begins working as the Director of the Department of Cultural Affairs for the City of Los Angeles
2018
2019
  • Alice begins hosting her own talk show.
  • Bette and Tina finalize their divorce.[37]
  • Kit dies on June 8, 2019, from a heroin overdose.[37]
  • Bette begins an affair with Felicity Adams.
  • Bette quits her job at the Department of Cultural Affairs and starts her mayoral election campaign.

Generation Q[]

Year Events in Generation Q
(2020 to present)
2020
2021

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 The L Word, 1x08: "Listen Up".
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Generation Q, 2x03: "Luck Be a Lady".
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 The L Word, 1x11: "Looking Back".
  4. The L Word, 2x12: "L'Chaim".
  5. The L Word, 2x13: "Lacuna".
  6. The L Word, 2x11: "Loud & Proud".
  7. In "Looking Back" (TLW 1x11), this event is said to have taken place 12 years before the episode, meaning Dana would have been 28 years old. This was retconned in "Lone Star" (TLW 3x07), where Alice says Dana is 32 years old.
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 The L Word, 2x08: "Loyal".
  9. The L Word, 2x04: "Lake House".
  10. Pippa was 22-years-old 30 years before "Light" (GQ 2x07).
  11. The L Word, 3x06: "Lifesize".
  12. The L Word, 4x07: "Lesson Number One".
  13. The L Word, 2x10: "Land Ahoy".
  14. The L Word, 4x02: "Livin' La Vida Loca".
  15. 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 The L Word, Interrogation Tapes: "Alice".
  16. 16.0 16.1 The L Word, 2x02: "Lap Dance".
  17. 17.0 17.1 17.2 The L Word, 3x07: "Lone Star".
  18. The L Word, 1x06: "Losing It".
  19. The L Word, 2x05: "Labyrinth".
  20. The L Word, Interrogation Tapes: "Shane".
  21. The L Word, 3x11: "Last Dance".
  22. The L Word, 6x06: "Lactose Intolerant".
  23. The L Word, 1x01: "Pilot".
  24. The L Word, 1x05: "Lawfully".
  25. The L Word, 1x10: "Liberally".
  26. The L Word, 2x01: "Life, Loss, Leaving".
  27. In "Liberally" (TLW 1x10), the dates on Tina's pregnancy diary imply her 12th week of pregnancy, and thus her miscarriage, would have taken place in April 2004, but this was presumably a mistake or retconned.
  28. The L Word, 1x13: "Limb from Limb".
  29. The L Word, 2x06: "Lagrimas de Oro".
  30. Kit has not spent time with Melvin in around 13 years in "Lawfully" (TLW 1x05), and in around 14 years in "Land Ahoy" (TLW 2x10).
  31. The L Word, 4x12: "Long Time Coming".
  32. 32.0 32.1 32.2 Generation Q, 1x02: "Less Is More".
  33. The L Word, Interrogation Tapes.
  34. The L Word, 6x01: "Long Night's Journey Into Day".
  35. Generation Q, 2x01: "Let's Do It Again".
  36. Generation Q, 1x08: "Lapse in Judgement".
  37. 37.0 37.1 Generation Q, 1x06: "Loose Ends".
  38. Generation Q, 1x05: "Labels".
Advertisement