Oh, whoops, way late on answering this one–I mean, I’m late on all of them but I had actually meant to reply and then just forgot.
Obviously, she did end up sticking around, but her role really has been so much in service of Maddie’s, and below so many other characters, it would have been difficult to say what her future was going to be. She symbolized something so huge for Maddie that I don’t think they’d just have her walk away, but I had feared they would put her back in prison and that would be used to break Maddie. Really glad they didn’t do that!
And another anon:
Oh yeah, I totally wasn’t blaming u or anything! I’m really enjoying both shows and probably wouldn’t have picked them up if I hadn’t seen that there was f/f involved Bc I get bored if shows don’t have f/f, or at least revolve more around women lol. Idk, I’m still bitter about how Maggie was treated on spg, but other than that I think most shows just have peripheral f/f so it’s easy not to get as invested & take the show for what it is. So I’m just thankful u giffed Bc I’m enjoying new stories!
Oh, I didn’t think you were, I was just putting out disclaimers, heh.
I totally get you! For me, f/f is a really simple indicator of the treatment of wom–actually, that’s literally the Bechdel test? It was created to test the potential for f/f and is used as a shortcut to measure how feminist media is. I was literally just talking to a friend who feeds me f/f book recommendations and I was like, I don’t even necessarily need f/f, I just need it to not focus on men. Even a lot of female-oriented works with a female lead will make her main dynamic with a guy, which, m/f romance is a specific genre and that’s fine but not what I’m looking for.
In TV, it’s not a sure bet of anything nowadays because it’s almost a rule that any new show must have some LGBT, so like you said, it can be pretty peripheral. Not as rewarding if it goes well, not as hurtful if goes bad. Looks like Proven Innocent turned out well, although sidelined till the end, now we look to see how In the Dark goes (aside from even more sidelining). But both shows definitely do focus a lot on women and seem earnest about trying do well by underrepresented groups, so it makes them easier to watch as the actual plot unfolds.