I Know Who Killed Jenny Schecter

I know, I know, there are a lot of Jenny haters out there, but, despite her spectacular downfall and her even more spectacularly polarising personality, the “who killed Jenny Schecter” question continues to rear its head even now, nearly fifteen years after the final series of The L Word. And we still don’t have any answers.

So, in an attempt to riddle out the Jenny mystery once and for all, I set about trying to figure out the reason Jenny was killed off, rather than who was responsible, with the hope that in the process, I would end up working out both. And I think I did.

Let’s start at the end (sorry, Julie Andrews), after the final episode of The L Word aired, in 2009, the internet was swarming with theories and conversations about Jenny’s death, and when asked directly who killed Jenny, L Word creator Ilene Chaiken said numerous times that she was the one who killed her. Which of course, is technically true, but it doesn’t really give us any more information than we already had and is it a satisfying answer? No. No, it’s not.

So let’s play detective and consider the evidence: In 2019, the actress who gave life to Jenny, Mia Kirschner, tweeted: “Nope. Jenny is not dead. That’s not the story that needs to be told about a survivor of sexual violence. It’s not a story that can be wrapped up and tied up with a bow. So no, she is not dead.” When asked about the creation of the characters, Ilene Chaiken stated that she based the character of Jenny on her younger self, and (here’s the important part), she created the character of Bette, as the “older” version of Jenny/herself.

This makes sense when you begin to realise how their behaviours and storylines often mirrored one another. Even from the get-go in series one, we see them both in “good” seemingly solid, happy relationships with people they seem to truly love, and right away we see them cheat on their respective partners, only to lose everything in the process. Not to mention both characters have the potential to be egomaniacs, and both have a serious penchant for self-destruction. What I found particularly interesting about this, is that while Jenny runs with these personality traits, and ultimately dies, it’s Bette, as the older (and wiser) self, who recognises these traits and flaws in herself and gives voice to them.

So, keeping that in mind, is it really so much of a stretch to consider that Bette killed Jenny? Not, however, for the obvious reason of saving her relationship with Tina, but to save herself.

For the character of Jenny to grow and evolve into Bette, Jenny had to die. There is no rebirth without death, and Bette realises in the final season of The L Word, just how much of a monster Jenny has become, and what a threat to her future happiness that is.

To add to this theory, in Generation Q, Bette mentions that Jenny killed herself in the pool, which, if my theory is “correct”, means both Mia and Ilene were right, we just didn’t have the whole story. It was emotional suicide, for Bette to not only survive, but to thrive and become who she was always going to become, Jenny had to die. Now, this all might just be born of my own insomnia and inability to stop daydreaming about Bette Porter, but it seems plausible…right?

Elinora Westfall

Elinora Westfall is a journalist and multi-award-winning writer of stage, screen, fiction and non-fiction. Elinora is currently working on a WWII lesbian film based on the true story of Suffolk land girl, Mary Haines, as well as the translation and re-write of Christa Winsloe’s Das Madchen Manuela.