It usually starts with a rumour.

A showrunner or a promo ad or a tweet indicates that there will be gay ladies kissing on an upcoming TV show.

The rumour is then analyzed. Where did it come from? Who are these gay ladies? Does the showrunner have a history of producing queer content? Has the showrunner betrayed us before?

Watching TV as a gay woman is no easy task. It takes a certain level of risk and trust. It takes a certain level of research. Because TV shows really, really love killing gay ladies.

This is why the queer women of the world met Motherland: Fort Salem hesitantly. Would it be a positive addition to the small, but growing number of queer shows on TV? Or would it do what most shows still do: kill, torture, or dismiss its gay women?

When Motherland: Fort Salem decided to end its first episode with a literal bang between Raelle (Taylor Hickson) and Scylla (Amalia Holm), queer women took notice. As Scylla said “the way out is in” during a sex scene with Raelle, my eyebrow shot up so high that it’s still somewhere in my hairline.

Motherland: Fort Salem is a unique mix of teen drama, military action, and witch lore. It’s sex positive and queer positive and women positive. And it also features and celebrates the central romance of the show, Raelle and Scylla. The official Motherland Twitter account often tweets gifs and promos featuring “Raylla,” Hickson and Holm give interviews together and retweet fanart of “Raylla,” and the other cast members cheer for “Raylla” to survive and thrive.

Raelle and Scylla are complex character with sizzling chemistry and enough angst to fill a few more season of the show. They do all the dumb things teenagers (and adults) do when they’re in love, but they do them on TV, which makes the relationship a much-needed push forward in queer representation onscreen.

Motherland: Fort Salem suffers from a pacing issue. It’s sometimes difficult to tell how much time has past between episodes, but in some ways, this works to Raylla’s advantage. They’re immediately attracted to each other. They sleep together by the end of the first episode. They kiss and fall in love and take witchy hallucinogenic drugs together. They dance at a party and they refer to each other as “girlfriend” and they give each other tokens of affection in the form of a bird skull pin and an oddly romantic skin rash. Honestly, it’s all very gay and very on brand for queer women.

The U-Haul stereotype is a stereotype for a reason.

And when it comes to shows aimed at teenagers, falling for the wrong person too quickly is kind of a signature move. Except this time, it’s two queer teenagers, which makes it exciting and different. Plus, as someone who didn’t get to be an out teenager and who saw zero positive queer stories on TV, it’s fun to imagine a world where two gay young people get to hold hands and make bad decisions. It’s cute and dreamy and I’m glad today’s queer teens have Raelle and Scylla to cheer on.

Simply put, there are not enough love stories between women on TV for tropes to exist yet. By appropriating tropes used by heterosexual TV romances, Motherland: Fort Salem offers a queer lens on what it looks like when two young people fall in love during tumultuous times.

It’s hard to ignore decades of poor treatment and queerbaiting, however, and there are already worries about season two. In an interview with Hollywood Life, showrunner Eliot Laurence was asked about Raelle and Scylla’s future and his answer left some fans worried. He said, “They have something really special. Whether it’s rekindling the romance, which is definitely not off the table, or just getting deeper and deeper as friends, I think they have a lot more to do with each other. They’re so special together.” The use of “friends” has some fans terrified that Raelle and Scylla’s romance is dead.

But Motherland: Fort Salem likes its surprises just as much as it likes its TV tropes.

As the Spree like to say, “The way over is under. The way out is in.”

Maybe when it comes to Raelle and Scylla, the only way back is forward.