Tina Kennard
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| Tina Kennard | |
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| First appearance | Pilot (episode 1.01) |
| Created by | Ilene Chaiken |
| Portrayed by | Laurel Holloman |
| Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Chief Development Executive for Peabody-Shaolin Film Studios |
| Family | Angelica Kennard-Porter (Daughter) |
Tina Kennard is a fictional character on the Showtime television network series The L Word, shown nationally in the United States. She is played by American actress Laurel Holloman. Tina lives in Los Angeles, California, and mostly hangs out in West Hollywood. She is the mother of Angelica Kennard and the on-off lover of Bette Porter.
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[edit] Storyline
[edit] Back Story
Prior to meeting Bette, Tina was straight and had a few relationships, along with two abortions in her early twenties.
The two met when Tina's then-boyfriend Eric took her to the Bette Porter Gallery. Tina found Bette to be smart, tough, incredibly beautiful, warm, and gracious. Bette noticed Tina's right earring had fallen off.
Later that night, Tina returned to the gallery to retrieve the lost earring. Bette had kept it for her. While Tina was picking it from her hand, Bette kissed her for the first time.
[edit] Season 1
At the beginning of the first season, having been a couple for 8 years, Tina and Bette are in the process searching for a sperm donor so that Tina can be artificially inseminated. After a successful insemination, Tina conceives, but suffers a miscarriage before she is even showing. This event is very traumatic for Tina, who finds comfort in working for a charity organization. Though she finds fulfillment there, her new career drives her further away from Bette. When Bette eventually has an affair with carpenter Candace Jewell, Tina is distraught, and moves out of their shared house.
[edit] Season 2
During the second season, Tina lives with Alice, and under her advice, decides to seek legal advice over her situation with Bette. It is then revealed that Tina, in secret, has gotten inseminated again, and is now several months pregnant. Not wanting anyone to know about this because of her broken relationship with Bette and previous miscarriage, Tina hides her expanding body with loose clothes. Eventually, Alice notices that Tina appears to have gained weight, and blames this on the break up with Bette. It is then that Tina admits her pregnancy, but she still does not tell Bette about the baby. After her charity organisation is granted money from the Peabody Foundation, Tina begins a relationship with Helena Peabody. It is Helena who reveals Tina's condition to Bette, and the two are shown as having a rivalry for Tina's affections. Helena's promiscuity and possessiveness combine to push Tina back towards Bette, who in turn is reaching out to her over the loss of her father Melvin. Though Tina experiences a difficult and traumatic labour, her baby girl Angelica is delivered safely, and at the end of the season it is revealed that she plans to move back in with Bette and raise their baby together.
[edit] Season 3
The third season is set six months after Angelica's birth, in which Tina and Bette are shown suffering more marital strife (including Bette losing her job at the CAC, and showing little interest in finding a new one). The couple appears to be more distant than ever; Bette seeks partner support from an overwhelmed Tina, who starts looking for the protection Bette cannot give her outside the home. Helena Peabody has just bought a movie studio, and offers Tina the chief development executive position.
Bette's love seems to have less and less effect on Tina, who "rediscovers" her male attractions. Tina reveals these troubles to Bette, who decides to go on a spiritual retreat. Because of this revelation, Bette decides to remove Tina's 'life-partner privileges'. During Bette's retreat, Tina (who has already had an online fling and also a frustrated attempt at fulfilling her interest with a male movie producer) meets Henry Young (Steven Eckholdt), a divorced man with one son. Upon realizing the relationship with Bette has reached a dead end, she gives Henry a chance and explores her "renewed interest" with him, scheming to take Angelica away from Bette (on the basis that she is Angelica's biological mother) and start a family with Henry. As Tina and Henry continue settling in, Bette decides to visit Joyce Wishnea (Jane Lynch), a gay civil rights lawyer Tina had previously contacted for her separation from Bette, in order to obtain the full custody of Angelica. Later on, Bette decides to withdraw her sole custody petition. The notification unfortunately reaches her lawyer too late. After receiving Bette's letter, Tina decides to withdraw her consent for allowing Bette to become Angelica's other legal parent. The season closes with Bette's desperate act to keep Angelica, as she kidnaps the baby and runs away.
[edit] Season 4
The fourth season, which is set immediately after the events of the third season, sees Bette return with Angelica after a short time away. Relations are generally strained between Bette and Tina at the start of the season, but things gradually improve between the pair, and they agree on shared custody of Angelica. Tina is still working in the movie studio, "Peabody-Shaolin Film Studios", and acquires the rights to adapt for the screen a novel of Jenny Schecter's, "Lez Girls". Work on "Lez Girls" strains the relationship between her and Jenny, a former close friend of hers, due to their conflicting opinions on how the piece should be adapted, and also leads Tina to meeting Kate Arden (Annabella Sciorra), the selected director for "Lez Girls"; it becomes apparent that there is a mutual attraction between the two. This happens around the end of Tina and Henry's relationship (Henry breaks off the relationship in episode 4.11, "Literary Licence to Kill", where Tina accidentally reveals, and tries to deny, that her supposed return to heterosexuality and desire to start a family with Henry and his son was a mere farce: she never cared for them and was only using them to spite Bette), and her attraction to Kate signals the return of Tina to lesbianism, or at least to relationships with women. At the very end of the season, it is revealed that the apparent reason for her both splitting up with Henry and not acting fully on her attractions to Kate is Bette. Tina confides in Kate about her returning attraction to Bette in episode 4.12 ("Long Time Coming") when Kate asks her if it was Bette who was stopping Tina from acting on her attraction to Kate, and Tina replies "It was Bette", and admits to wanting Bette back. However, despite this, Tina is seen helping Bette with her budding relationship with Jodi Lerner (Marlee Matlin), even though it is obvious she wants Bette back (although, she does not let Bette know this).
[edit] Season 5
Tina repeatedly clashes with Jenny while producing Lez Girls. Shane and Alice try and be Tina's wingmen but Tina's obvious, lingering affection for Bette affects her dating prospects. She soon meets a woman which Tina ends up sleeping with her on the first date. Later Bette finds out and Bette's jealousy over Tina's new girlfriend is the probable cause of a surprising moment in their self-defense class. Later that evening, they catch the other alone in a bar lounge. Unable to hide their mutual longing for each other, they kiss. Soon Tina begins an affair with Bette. For a while, both Tina and Bette wonder if what is happening to them is nothing more than a sexual reconnection. During a blackout, Bette and Tina get stuck in an elevator on their way to their Couples therapist. It is here that they confess each other's fears and, most importantly, the love they have for each other. They both agree to keep the affair a secret until after the Subaru Pink Ride. The truth of the affair comes out during the camp fire "I Never" game. Bette admits to her sister Kit that she loves Tina while Tina also admits to Shane and Alice that she too still loves Bette. Jodi brushes her off when Tina tries to apologize as Jodi picks up Bette at The Planet. After Bette breaks off the relationship and endures a shocking public humiliation at the first exhibition of a new Jodi Lerner piece, the future seems bright for Tina and Bette as they dance the night away at the Lez Girl's wrap party.
[edit] The Chart
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