Why Do I Care Who Killed Jenny Schecter?

Who killed Jenny Schecter? It’s a question that haunted us all after watching Showtime’s hit series L Word. For some it’s haunted them for seven years, for me, it’s been bothering me for the past month. I’m behind on the times, sue me.

I started the seventy episode series over two years ago, right when I started grad school. Its images haunted my tumblr’s dash, and before I even started the series, I already had a crush on Katherine Moennig’s Shane. So while it took me two years to finish a show I should have finished in maybe four months, I can say its one of my favorites. I took too long to finish it because I didn’t want it to end. Now that it has, I want more, but truly I want to know who killed Jenny Schecter. And I’m not going to accept that it was probably-maybe-definitely Alice who did it just because Showtime might have had a show in the works about her being in prison. The show didn’t happen so that storyline didn’t happen. Sorry.

Jenny Schecter’s death came as not a surprise, but as the inevitable. She was downright annoying to watch on screen in the final two seasons; she was a train wreck waiting to happen.  Mia Kirshner is an angel, and I don’t mean to equate her with her character’s annoying qualities. Everyone in Jenny’s life was moving on, Bette and Tina were going to New York, Alice and Tasha maybe were broken up (though they weren’t), Shane was still banging crazy pants Nikki and Helena fell into love again with her director lady, while Jenny was still Jenny, messing in people’s lives while also being super endearing. She did create that sweet bon voyage video for Bette and Tina, involving some familiar faces in Jodi and Tim to name a few. Jenny didn’t really have anywhere else to go. She wanted to be the next power lesbian in charge, as Bette and Tina had rocked it for years before, but her character was just weak and wild, so the only resolution to tie up character’s storyline was death. I’m not sure I can wrap my head around it, but it happened, and not much can be done about it.

So who are the suspects and why would they kill her? Why did the L Word use the framing of Jenny’s death to direct the final season? The format excels with the series How to Get Away With Murder, but even now in the show’s third season, it’s getting a bit old. We don’t really get much from the structure, other than to show us what the last day of all our favorite characters were before Jenny fell to her death.  Everybody hated Jenny and at some point threatened her life. But it’s not like anyone could have killed her right? This isn’t the HTGAWM.

SHANE

Shane had been roped into a relationship with Jenny since the beginning of the season. Jenny professed her love, and Shane didn’t know how to respond but to start a relationship. Shane had a romance with Molly the previous season, which had affected her, but wasn’t really stated all that much. In the finale, she discovers not only the negatives to Lez Girls, but also the letter Molly gave to Jenny to give to Shane. Jenny stashed it in the attic, which apparently none of them ever go into.

Rage level: 5/10 (enough to burn her clothes maybe or bang Nikki on her bed, not enough for murder)

TINA

Tina seems to be one of the top two contenders of the deed. Jenny’s been messing with her love life for quite a bit of time. Jenny wants to out Bette for her love affair with her old love, Kelly, but Tina knows better. She knows Bette wouldn’t hurt her again. She discovers the Lez Girls negatives, which everyone thought she snatched. Turns out her theories were right about Jenny all along.

Rage Level: 7/10 (What Jenny did was really screwed, but would she really push Jenny off her rickety balcony? I don’t peg Tina as particularly dim.)

BETTE

Jenny’s been harassing Bette about Kelly for a bit of time, after supposedly getting evidence of their illicit encounter on video. Also Bette wasn’t a fan of Jenny’s after she wrote her nasty book about her friends’ and their discretions.

Rage Level: 5/10 (Bette is cool under pressure. She’s great at ignoring Jenny’s whines and cries of attention. She is a dope mom after all.)

ALICE

Alice is also another contender for her Jenny’s death. Not only was she going to be the protagonist of the series’ spinoff, The Farm, but Alice does have an out of control temper. When Dana broke her heart and dumped her, she went full on psycho stalker for a hot minute. She has mellowed out over the series but still… Jenny stole Alice’s idea for her movie and nobody is listening to her. Alice seemed to bury the hatchet with Jenny is in the finale, but she also was the last person who went outside.

Rage Level: 6/10 (She does have that temper. But also, she’s a precious snowflake.)

THE WILD CARDS

Helena – Jenny told Helena’s director love, Dylan, about the testing her with Nikki, so nobody really knows if Dylan’s standing was ever threatened at one point. Plus, she was in prison. She's knows people.

Nikki- Jenny was a real sassy pants to Nikki while they were together and technically Jenny swooped up Shane into a relatively almost committed relationship. Nikki was last seen outside of the house, presumably to see and bang Shane, but who knows.

Tim- Tim seemed happy on the tape. But come on, Jenny broke his heart. And she did it in a really terrible way. Sure he has a baby, but Jenny did visit him to get that video, maybe his hatred for her was reignited.

Carmen- Jenny stood between Shane and Carmen’s relationship from the get go, even though the relationship was all Shane’s undoing. Carmen was in the video and maybe she decided to get her out of the picture once and for all.

Shane’s crazy exes? – Unknown number. But Shane has picked up some oddball and cool lovers over the years, one of them could have snapped.

Maybe in the end Ilene Chaiken didn’t care about giving us the answers because she truly didn’t care who killed Jenny. Maybe Jenny killed herself, flung herself off the balcony as a poetic farewell to Bette and Tina, who brought her into her chaos driven world. Either way, I wish somehow the show would come back. Add the L Word, to the list of sub-par series finales, I wish I hadn’t watched.

Rip Jenny