In the second season of HBO’s adaptation of Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason crime novels, Della Street and Anita St. Pierre become one of the show’s most beloved duos. Their sapphic romance takes center stage as the whip-smart aspiring lawyer and free-spirited Hollywood screenwriter try to navigate their relationship in 1930s Los Angeles.
Della’s character evolves from Perry Mason’s secretary in season one to his right-hand woman in season two, as she tries to carve out a role in her chosen profession while hiding her true identity as a card-carrying, if rather careful, lesbian. Anita, on the other hand, sweeps Della off her feet and helps her explore a world of intimate moments she never thought possible.
Despite some fans being disgruntled about the quick dispatching of Della’s season one love interest, a much-younger boarding housemate named Hazel, played by Molly Ephraim, Della and Anita’s relationship provides a fitting tribute to the original show and its star’s place in queer history.
The second season of Perry Mason ends up being a cornucopia of complicated queer storylines, as Della navigates her public, lavender relationship with her old friend, the closeted district attorney Hamilton Burger, played by Justin Kirk. As Della and Hamilton’s relationship becomes more complicated during the Gallardo case, Anita becomes Della’s safe space, and they explore how to have a queer relationship in the 1930s while adopting the coded body language people used to communicate in public.
While much has changed in the United States for gay couples since the 1930s, homosexuality is still illegal in nearly 70 countries. The show’s portrayal of different types of people’s experiences in the era and storytelling that isn’t exploitative or cliched serves as a fitting reminder that there’s still much work to be done.
For Juliet Rylance and Jen Tullock, who play Della and Anita, respectively, their onscreen relationship felt historically accurate and true to their characters’ formative personalities. If there’s a next chapter, Rylance said she’d like to explore more about the world Anita inhabits and how liberated Hollywood truly was in the 1930s. As for their onscreen relationship, it has garnered a fan following that is eagerly anticipating more of the electric sapphic love story of Della and Anita.