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Ashley Tisdale is a lesbian boss on “Young & Hungry,” with the possibility of her own spin-off

Hello! Have you been keeping up with Young & Hungry, patiently awaiting the return of badass lesbian Logan? Well, whether or not you have, surely you’re here for an update.

Logan’s appearance in this week’s episode is a special one, because this episode, called “Young & Sofia,” might serve as a backdoor pilot for a show of the same name. I have some Feelings about that, but first, let’s recap the events of the episode.

We open with Sofia listening to an empowerment meditation as she enters a fancy office building for an interview at Clikd, a media entertainment enterprise run by the one and only Ashley Tisdale. Er, I mean Logan.

The first person Sofia meets is a woman named CJ, and the first thing she says is that she’s late, as in her period’s late. After seeing the episode, she fits neatly into the lonely single girl stereotype of any office-place comedy, the Desperate Dater.

Everyone is scurrying around, nervous for The Boss’s arrival, and when she does arrive, she’s all business. Everything from her pin-straight hair to her power-lesbian outfit screams what we already know: She’s the boss.

Sofia’s interview is basically, “Would you murder a baby to get me my story?” “No, but I’d do pretty much anything else.” And then Logan shoos her away. Sofia finds Gabi raiding the free cereal bar and says she’s sure she made an impression. And sure enough, on the elevator ride down, Sofia gets a call that she got the job, which she takes even though Logan is clearly insane and a little bit racist based on the fact that she kept calling Sofia “Maria.”

On her first day of work, Sofia meets two more office comedy archetypes: Leo, the awkward guy who is smart but immediately hits on Sofia. The Lovesick Nerd, if you will. And OF COURSE, as literally anyone who has ever seen a sitcom could have predicted, almost as soon as the “I’m flattered, but I don’t date co-workers” spiel was out of Sofia’s mouth, in swoops Kendrick, the conventionally attractive, too cool for school guy. The Charmer.

Logan calls Sofia into her office and starts rattling off some of the ridiculous things she’s going to make her do, just because she’s the boss and Sofia’s the assistant, including but not limited to going to her anger management classes in her stead.

CJ brings flowers in for Logan (of course making a comment about never getting flowers herself, so goes the role of the Desperate Dater) and after Sofia reads the glowing card, Logan admits she sent them to herself since she doesn’t have a date to the award ceremony she’s being honored at tonight. Logan says women are intimidated by her and her 92 awards, so Sofia whips out her list of the hottest lesbians she knows and calls someone named Whitney Harper for her.

I’m a little bummed Logan isn’t still dating her soup chef, but I guess they had to start with a clean slate if this is going to be its own show.

When Sofia goes to celebrate with her Young & Hungry friends, she says that she found the secret to making her boss happy. Gabi jokingly asks if she slept with Logan (because that’s what she did) but Sofia doesn’t flinch at this, she just says she set her up with another power lesbian. But Eliot recognizes the name of said lesbian and says that she’s known for being…hardcore.

And sure enough, when Sofia’s phone rings, it’s Logan calling her…from a cage.

Sofia goes on a rescue mission, and as soon as she lets her boss out of her cage, Logan fires her. Sofia begs for her job, saying she’ll do anything, and they come to the agreement that if Sofia gets an exclusive interview with the elusive tag artist called Rooster, she can keep her job.

The next morning, Sofia is ordering Logan’s coffee when we meet a smiley barista who, based on my experience with back door pilots has taught me anything, is potentially another regular character on the potential new series. We’ll call him the Gay Best Friend. I’m unclear on this point because on one hand, having a lead character who is a lesbian AND a gay POC recurring main character is a lot for a sitcom, but on the other hand, it’s Freeform.

Anyway, the GBF’s name is Zander, and his ex happens to know this Rooster character, so Sofia gets the info from him and takes it straight to Logan. Logan is impressed at first until she realizes it’s just an email on a post-it, with no guaranteed interview.

Then, in one 60-second span, Logan falls victim to a BossLady trope AND a predatory lesbian trope by saying she sacrificed all of her personal relationships to be successful and by telling Sofia that bending over in front of her won’t help to soften her, but she appreciates the effort.

Back at her desk feeling defeated, Sofia is approached by the Lovesick Nerd and Mr. Charming, and after the boys fight over her (and Rooster’s email address) for a minute, she suggests they work together.

So they go to the coffee shop (which could end up being The Hang, which is how Zander could factor in), where they hack Rooster’s email, find out where the next tag will be, and split up to try to get this interview.

When Sofia gets to her assigned location, it’s already tagged; she’s too late. She sees a raggedy woman pushing a shopping cart and is asking if she saw Rooster when Sofia notices paint cans in the cart. Sofia asks her for an interview, saying she can be in the spotlight when a spotlight does indeed shine on them…from the police.

The cops take them to jail, where Sofia continues to ask for an interview and Rooster continues to refuse.

Logan shows up and asks Rooster for an interview in her own way, pointing out that everyone will know her identity now, why not tell the world her story in her own words. She promises to give Rooster final approval of the article, and even though Logan ruins the nice moment by shouting JUST DO IT at her, Rooster ultimately agrees.

Logan bails the two of them out, as well as a hooker who promises to “do stuff” and tells Sofia she didn’t actually get the interview, so she’s still fired.

Sofia takes a box of sadness to her office to pack up her brand new desk.

Leo gets his Lovesick all over her as she sadly heads to her desk, but as she sits down, her phone starts playing that motivational mantra she was listening to at the top of the episode. Charged with a burst of confidence, Sofia bursts into Logan’s office and says that she did a damn good job and that Clikd would be sorry to lose her budding talent. As she’s about to storm out of the office, Logan offers Sofia her job back. Sofia collapses into a grateful heap as Logan applauds her newfound backbone.

She tells Sofia to go back to her desk, and she does, spinning around in her desk chair delightedly because Logan finally knows her name.

Back at the apartment, Gabi wants to go out to celebrate Sofia surviving a week in her new job, but Sofia falls asleep with a wine glass in her hand. Gabi starts to tuck her in, but Sofia’s phone goes off, and it’s Logan, sending her off on another wacky adventure.

Okay. So. As far as episodes of Young & Hungry goes, this definitely had a different tone to it. It wasn’t quite as goofy, but it was clever and cute. It did a good job setting up the new show and introducing all the characters and their very clear, albeit stereotypical, roles. Unfortunately, almost right away, I found myself early on drawing comparisons to Supergirl, which is unfair for all of us, but especially for “Young & Sofia,” because nothing will ever come close to Supergirl in my heart. And obvious the two shows are different in the big ways, like genre and style for example, but here are some ways it’s the same:

Big Bad Boss Lady

Nervous Assistant Learning to Stand Her Ground

Lovesick Nerd vs. Mr. Charming in the Quest for Assistant’s Heart

I think where the comparison bothers me the most (besides being SO OVER the “I’m in the ‘friendzone’ and sad about it because a relationship with a female is only worth it if there’s sex involved” thing #misandry) is the Big Bad Boss Lady thing. Cat Grant lives on the line between stern and cruel, but the only times she’s unpredictable is when she is suddenly compassionate or vulnerable. She establishes a baseline of being impossible to please, and when you do manage to do something right, it’s a perk. Logan, on the other hand, is a little hot and cold, in a way that comes off as a little unhinged.

And here’s why I even care: Lesbians in sitcoms are so rare. Lesbian main recurring characters are even more rare. Lesbian leads in sitcoms are almost unheard of. And she’s a female boss of a hugely successful company. Why then, my dear Ashley Tisdale, would you want to portray her as angry, kind of mean, unable to hold down personal relationships, and even a little shallow?

I don’t know. Are my expectations too high for a Freeform sitcom? Young & Hungry falls into a lot of stereotypes too, though the nature of the structure of the show (young billionaire and his hired staff) leaves it with less to directly compare to. Is it because I’m currently watching Parks & Rec for the first time, and no office-based sitcom will ever live up to the legend of Leslie Knope?

I have every intention of keeping tabs on Young & Sofia, should it come to stand on its own, especially since sitcom pilots, even backdoor pilots, are so, so hard. Any decent sitcom takes a few episodes to get its bearing; Parks & Rec took its entire first season to figure out what its best parts were and lean into them.

So help me out; what did you think? Do you think Logan will become a more likable lesbian character for us to root for? Or will she fall into all the worst lesbian AND woman-in-charge tropes that make us cringe? Could Ashley Tisdale be the sitcom lesbian we deserve?

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