Jenny Schecter

Jennifer 'Jenny' Schecter is a fictional character on the Showtime television network series The L Word, shown nationally in the United States. She is played by Jewish Canadian actress Mia Kirshner. In a recent poll of fans of the show, Jenny was voted the most hated character on the series, owing to her tendency to cheat on her lovers for no reason, as well as her egotistical and selfish personality, and her frequent periods of getting angry or upset whenever someone badgers or provokes her in the slightest, though she occasionally regrets her actions later..

Season 1
Recently graduated from college, Jenny decides to move from the Midwest to Los Angeles, where her boyfriend Tim Haspel is currently living, and working as the assistant swim coach to a girls swim team at UCLA. Tim took a lease on a house and renovated the garage to create a writer's workshop for Jenny to start her career as a writer.

After arriving, Jenny discovers that the neighborhood where Tim is living has far more to it than meets the eye. She unwittingly observes Shane engaging in a fling with one of her conquests at the house next door, belonging to Bette Porter and Tina Kennard. Tim confirms for Jenny their neighbors are a lesbian couple, but after Jenny's description of the encounter insists the neighbors were not the lesbian couple she observed having sex in the pool.

The day after the pool incident, Jenny meets neighbor Tina. During their introduction, Tina extends Jenny an invitation to a party at her and Bette's home. Jenny accepts the invitation to the party, a decision that proves to mark the beginning of a new life for her.

Jenny and Tim attend the party. Jenny meets and engages in small talk with Alice. Alice unsuccessfully hits on Jenny, at which point Marina Ferrer joins the conversation. As Marina and Jenny display an immediate chemistry, Alice backs off her attempt and lets Marina follow the conquest. During Jenny and Marina's conversation, Jenny excuses herself to go to the bathroom. Marina misinterprets Jenny's departure as a sexual invitation and follows her into the bathroom. Here Marina kisses Jenny for the first time and unleashes what later is to evolve into an affair. This is Jenny's first sexual encounter with a woman, as later detailed in her 'coming out' story.

Upset and frightened by their intimate encounter in the bathroom, Jenny grabs Tim and leaves the party. She begins to consider the possibility of exploring her newly discovered feelings or keeping on the safe ground in her heterosexual relationship with Tim. She eventually succumbs to Marina and starts having an affair. In the meantime, Tim and Jenny become engaged. Tim, unaware of Jenny's affair, invites Marina to a dinner party to celebrate their engagement. Their neighbor Bette deduces what is going on and the rumor of the affair spreads in the local lesbian community. Tina, Jenny's neighbor and also Bette's long-time partner, decides to confront Jenny about the affair. Jenny denies anything between herself and Marina. Alice later confirms the secret and prevents Tim from discovering the affair by warning Jenny of his arrival to The Planet, where Jenny is engaged in an intimate encounter with Marina. But Jenny becomes more reckless and unapologetic to her tryst with Marina.

Tim later discovers the affair by accident. He leaves the house for a swim meet and discovers he has forgotten something. After returning home to retrieve his stopwatch he walks in on Marina performing cunnilingus on Jenny. Tim storms out of the house heartbroken. After an emotional confrontation that same day, Jenny agrees to marry Tim and also promises to never see Marina again. Tim forces Jenny to confront Marina at The Planet and tell her the affair is over. Tim and Jenny travel to a motel and are married.

The morning after, Jenny finds herself alone in the hotel. Tim has left in the middle of the night, leaving his wedding ring and a note on the bedside table. She leaves the motel and hitchhikes back to Los Angeles. She ends up traveling for days and decides to attempt a reconciliation with Tim. Tim in the meantime has discovered that Jenny and Marina's affair was not a one time occurrence as Jenny had previously stated. After Jenny lies to Tim right to his face (the first of many times) about how many times she has cheated on him with Marina (revealing that she does not love Tim), he breaks all ties with her. After being kicked out of their house, Jenny reaches out to Marina. Marina takes Jenny in. After staying for a few days, Jenny discovers that Marina has an ongoing relationship with someone else and does not intend to break it up because of their affair. Marina asks Jenny to leave as her girlfriend is soon returning to town. Jenny is again left alone.

Now homeless, Jenny heads back to Tim and he allows her to move into the backyard workshop. During the time she lives there, she befriends Dana and the rest of the group, and she travels with them to Palm Springs. On this excursion Jenny meets Robin (Ann Elizabeth Ramsey), a woman who saves her from making a fool of herself with Marina. Robin and Jenny begin dating upon their return to L.A. from Palm Springs. Once back in Los Angeles, Jenny also seduces Gene Feinberg, a male marine biologist. By the end of the first season, Jenny's relationship with Tim is completely over and she is left to choose between Robin, Gene, and an apologetic Marina, who lets Jenny know she is willing to start it all over again.

Season 2
Season two starts with Jenny having chosen to continue dating Gene. However, Gene soon ends the relationship with Jenny because from her actions he concludes that she is a full-on lesbian. Robin reappears in Jenny's scene and informs her of Marina's suicide attempt and departure. They start seeing each other for a short time, until Jenny ends the relationship because she felt things were moving too quickly.

Tim moves back to Ohio for a teaching position, and Jenny takes over the lease on the house. She takes both Shane and later on Mark Wayland (portrayed by Eric Lively) as roommates.

Jenny also begins to attend a writer's workshop at UCLA taught by the abrasive and stern femnist writer Charlotte Birch (Sandra Bernhard). It is through Shane that Jenny meets and gets involved with Carmen -one of Shane's former conquests-; and through Mark's secret videorecordings she learns that Carmen has never stopped loving Shane and that she is only using Jenny until the "real deal" comes along. This violation of privacy stirs up buried ghosts and memories of a violent trauma that she suffered as a child. Trying to release her inner pain, a disturbed Jenny gets a job in a strip club where she begins to perform as "Miss Yeshiva girl", and also starts to cut herself. During the second season finale, Shane discovers Jenny hurting herself and promises that she'll get Jenny the help she desperately needs.

Season 3
Six months later, Jenny returns from Skokie to Los Angeles, after having received medical help, with a new girlfriend, Moira, a transgender female who is transitioning into becoming a male. Jenny is supportive of this at first, but as Moira/Max gets more testosterone, becomes more aggressive and adopts a heterosexual man's behavior, Jenny's support wanes. During this process, Jenny gets a contract and an advance for a thinly fictionalized memoir. With her discomfort with Max's new way of acting, their relationship becomes conflictive and Jenny ends it after she gets involved with a French writer named Claude while in Canada for Shane and Carmen's wedding.

Season 4
Even though she was the healthiest and happiest she'd ever been in season three, season four finds Jenny, inexplicably, spinning wildly out of control once again into her selfish, sociopath behavior. She first opens up to a journalist from Curve, named Stacey Merkin, who later gives Jenny's memoir a scathing and disapproving review. In retaliation, Jenny adopts a dying dog from an animal shelter, tracks down Merkin's lover Lindsey, a veterinarian, and asks her to euthanise it. She later attempts to seduce Lindsey in the hopes of proving that Lindsey is not nearly as virtuous and saintly as Stacey believes her to be.

Jenny's book Lez Girls, a thinly veiled account of her life with the rest of the series' cast, is published in the The New Yorker, much to the dismay of some of her acquaintances. The novella is a hot property and Tina's studio is desperate to get the rights to adapt it and make it into a movie and despite their constantly clashing personalities, Tina and Jenny start working together to get the novella made into a film. Jenny also has a brief run-in with Marina, who returns and stays just long enough to spirit away Jenny's new lover, Claude, before disappearing once again.

Season 5
Jenny ingratiates herself with a hedge fund billionaire producer and becomes the screenwriter and director for the film adaptation of Lez Girls, and turns it into her Mary Sue fantasy, while clashing with Tina. She drives away her assistant with unreasonable demands, then hires Adele Channing, a fan of her writing, as her new assistant. Max notices that some of the details of Adele's account of her difficult childhood don't add up, but Jenny and Shane support Adele. Adele, who turns out to be even more twisted and deranged than Jenny, adopts Jenny's hair and dress style and secretly sabotages the film's production.

Jenny starts a relationship with Niki (Kate French), the young actress playing "Jessie", Jenny's analogue in Lez Girls. Later Adele steals a sex tape that Jenny and Niki made and uses it as a means of blackmail to have Jenny removed as the director of "Lez Girls", with herself being the replacement. This devastates Jenny, particularly when Niki chooses to honor her contract and remain filming with Adele; Jenny then states that Niki is dead to her. However, Jenny does repair her relationship with a sympathetic Tina and finds some comfort in Shane's unwavering friendship (Shane quits the film in solidarity with Jenny). Jenny also apologizes to Max for doubting him when he voiced his suspicions about Adele earlier.

In the season finale, Jenny crashes the wrap party for the movie in the middle of Adele's speech. Adele hands her the microphone, prompting Jenny to tell everyone she wanted to tell Niki she was "madly in love" with someone. In her search to find Niki, she walks in on an intimate moment between Niki and Shane on a rail. Jenny turns and walks away, the two chasing after her. Her final words to the two are, "that was the ultimate betrayal."

The Chart


Jenny Schecter