Danny Field/NBC

11 Great TV Female Friendships to Celebrate This Galentine’s Day

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Danny Field/NBC

It’s February 13th, and that means it’s Galentine’s Day! As decreed by Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation, Galentine’s Day–celebrated on the day before Valentine’s Day– is about “ladies celebrating ladies. It’s like the Lilith Fair, minus the angst, plus frittatas.”

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In the spirit of ladies celebrating ladies, here are some of our favorite female friendships from television, in no particular order. Obviously, there are too many awesome friendships to list here, so be sure to let us know your favorites below.

Leslie Knope & Ann Perkins, Parks and Recreation

We have to start with the originator of the holiday and her best friend.

Issa & Molly, Insecure

Forget Lawrence, it’s Issa’s relationship with her best friend Molly that’s the most interesting part of HBO’s Insecure.

Eleanor & Tahani, The Good Place

I adore the friendship between Eleanor and Tahani. On the surface, they don’t totally make sense. Eleanor is constantly calling Tahani out on her insufferableness, and Tahani sometimes seems to view Eleanor as some sort of new, exotic pet. But there’s a deeper bond (and an instantly engrossing chemistry on the part of Kristen Bell and Jameela Jamil) that makes them so much fun to watch.

Khadijah, Synclaire, Regine, & Maxine, Living Single

Sister Lee Productions/Warner Bros Television

The (often infuriatingly underrated) precursor to Friends gave us one of the best depictions of cool, mutually supportive, professional women to ever air on television.

Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, & Sophia, The Golden Girls

image: Disney/ABC Estelle Getty, Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White "The Golden Girls" Sophia, Dorothy, Blanche, Rose

Disney/ABC

Female friendships in pop culture often lean into destructive tropes. These women proved that friendships between women can last a lifetime.

Daria & Jane, Daria

image: MTV

This was the first time I could remember seeing a female friendship on television that reflected my own. (Or at least, the kind of friendships I wanted in my life.)

Abbi & Ilana, Broad City

These two are so perfect for each other, it makes my heart hurt.

Jessica Jones & Trish Walker, Jessica Jones

Netflix/Marvel Television

A true friend is one who sticks by your side while your obsessive mind-controlling ex tries to murder you both.

Maggie & Emma, Playing House

This show was born out of a friendship between Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham. The two have described their writing process and it basically just consists of improvising and writing the script afterwards based off of their natural banter. They never seem like they’re not having fun, and their love of each other comes through in every moment of this show.

Flaca & Maritza, Orange Is the New Black

Jojo Whilden/Netflix

While season five of OITNB wasn’t my favorite, these two were a constant bright spot as they navigated fame and friendship during a prison riot.

Lucy & Ethel, I Love Lucy

The original best friends of television.

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Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.