With soon-to-be culture-defining quotes such as “I’m not a lesbian, I’m a politician!” and “Barb is a professional gay sex haver,” Slo Pitch is the most important series ever made (according to me). 

Created by Karen Knox, Gwenlyn Cumyn and J Stevens, the Canadian sapphic comedy follows The Public Lass Brovaries, a queer softball team led by freshly dumped coach Joanne (Jess Salgueiro). Between petty rivalries, sexy carwash fundraisers and her ex playing for the enemy, Joanne’s got one goal: win! the! breakup!

Knox and Cumyn also star as Boris and Ann, respectively: the former a German agent of chaos having an affair with the team’s (supposedly) straight sponsor Barb; the latter a source of “horny hijinks” and “a certain charisma that gets her in and out of trouble”. Boris may also be the key to defeating Dr Doom in Avengers: Doomsday (read on for this to make sense). 

Following its premiere on Crave – the supreme network for queer sports television (Heated Rivalry, hello?) – Slo Pitch is arriving on Sky and NOW in the UK on 24 October. Knox, Cumyn and Salgueiro speak with Gay Times about bringing their homegrown web series to the big leagues and delivering the “loser lesbian representation” the world needs right now.

GT: Jess, Karen, Gwenlyn, Slo Pitch needs 25 seasons. A prequel series. A Barb spin-off. Boris needs to appear in Avengers: Doomsday. All of it. 

Karen: Amazing. Sam, how much have you seen of the show? How many episodes did they send you? 

GT: Four. 

Karen: Yes, gorgeous. I'm so excited for you to see the rest of the season. I'm like, ‘They need to see everything immediately. Let's get it out there.’ We've been living with it for so long that I'm just dying for people to see where these characters go. It needs to be, like four weeks from now… today.

GT: Honestly, I was cackling seconds into the series with Emily Hampshire’s character Leanne and her musical theatre flashback on the pitch. As soon as that happened I was in. I was so in.

Karen: You're locked in. 'I'm so in.' Are you a musical theater person, Sam?

GT: Not hugely, no. But I love overly campy theatre like Kinky Boots or Oh, Mary. 

Karen: Like Rocky Horror Picture Show.  

Jess: I've been doing a bunch of press with Emily, and I'm so sad that she's not here, but I had no idea she's a huge musical theater fan. Did you guys know this? 

Karen: Yeah.

Gwenlyn: Yeah. 

Jess: Because when you guys sent her the offer she was like, ‘Oh my god, how did they know I'm a secret musical theater person?’ It’s so off-brand. It's so weird. 

GT: Karen and Gwenlyn, I wanna start with you. You co-created Slo Pitch in 2020 as a web series, and now it's on Crave. So what has it been like to return to these characters and this story, and suddenly have a much bigger canvas to play with?

Karen: Golly.

Gwenlyn: It's very exciting. It does feel a bit like the Broveries, the main team in the series, is like a family at this point. When we get to play with them, it's like coming home or going back to summer camp, and that's such a joy. To get to do it in a world where we all have trailers at the end of the day… wow! A lot of these people, the cast and crew, are people who we not only made the web series with, but have also been working with in indie film and theater for over a decade. So it really feels like we're making it to the big leagues together.

Karen: On the character side of things, in the web series we were dealing with such a short format. We didn't get to dive into the emotional complexities and the opportunity to draw out a bit of a ‘will they, won't they?’ and people being able to wrestle with moral quandaries, because there's so many of those in beer league sports...

But it was a nice opportunity to just get a little deeper with the characters. I think that, where we end… God, I love episode 10 so much. The season finale for me is like, I've seen it probably 8,000 times now going through post, etcetera, but it still hits an emotional beat for me. That was really satisfying to lock into a longer narrative story that allowed for the characters to have real depth. 

GT: Am I gonna cry? 

Karen: Sam, you are gonna weep. 

GT: I'm a weeper. 

Gwenlyn: But then you'll laugh. 

Karen: Yes. That's the Slo Pitch MO: if we make you cry, we promise five seconds later there will be a joke. It's never gonna be maudlin. We want you to be crying while you're laughing, or laughing while you're crying.