Skins: Season One, "Sid" and "Maxxie and Anwar"

Series One, Episode Five, “Sid”

“Wake up, Sid!”

-Cassie

Sid (Mike Bailey) is essentially a sidekick. In a more traditional story, his inner life would be of little interest to us. But, then again, in a more traditional story Tony wouldn’t be a cataclysmic asshole.

"Sid" finds us once again reassessing our preconceived notions about a character. In essence, the episode suggests what would happen if the sidekick were the main character. Now, no single character is technically the central character of Skins, but the show clearly has a weak spot for the characters of Tony, Michelle, and Sid (and Cassie as far as she relates to their story). And, for better and for worse, Tony is the closest thing to a central character the show has.

We already like and sympathize with Sid, but by placing us so fully in his perspective the character comes into sharper relief. Not that we didn’t already feel for him, but Sid has existed as much for comic relief as poignant angst.

Here it crystallizes as to why Sid is such a malleable, unmotivated loser. To his parents he’s a disappointment and to his friends he’s a plaything, a fuck up, or pitiable little brother. He’s a pathetic figure, and he desperately needs to self-actualize.

But the entire episode finds him deeply oblivious to what’s going on around him. He misses that his parents are on the verge of divorce. He doesn’t catch on to the devious manipulations of Tony. He fails to pick up on the feelings Cassie expresses.

Sid will eventually realize all of these things, but only after it’s too late to do anything about them and he leaves a dramatic wreckage behind. The episode ends with him attempting to do one thing right; it’s just an essay (well, not just an essay but rather the necessary grade not to get kicked out of school) but it’s finally something he can choose not to screw up and get right. It’s a surprisingly affecting moment for what amounts to someone staring at a computer in a montage.

We like to think that we’re the protagonist of our life’s story. But we’re also the supporting character in the lives of other people, and we tend to forget this. At its best, Skins suggests that every person has their value. Every person is going through their own issues and struggles, and we will never fully know the experiences of the people in our lives. We’re too caught up in seeing ourselves as the hero, but we’re also the sidekick and being the sidekick is rough.

Grade: B+

Series One, Episode Six, “Maxxie and Anwar” 

And then there’s Skins at its worst …

*Sigh*

“Maxxie and Anwar” is infamous amongst fans of Skins. It’s gone down as part of the show’s lore as “The Russian Episode”. It isn’t just bad; it’s epically bad. But, moreover, it’s a massive miscalculation. It’s an episode that features all the distasteful and questionable elements of Skins and almost next to none of the redeeming ones.

The episode transplants its ensemble on a fieldtrip to Russia … and, um, things happen. Even by Skins’s standards, the plot is a scatterbrained mess. For an episode that claims to be primarily interested in Anwar (Dev Patel), Maxxie (Mitch Hewer) and their friendship, the episode spends most of its time doing everything but exploring that relationship.  

Where do we even begin with what doesn’t work: Awful Russian stereotypes abound, Anwar is mistaken for a terrorist, Sid acts as a drug mule, and Chris and Angie sleep together.

But the most pressing problem is how this is all done at the expense of one of Skins most riveting and devastating stories. Anwar and Maxxie are best friends. Anwar is a Muslim and Maxxie is gay; Anwar’s religious beliefs cause him to break off his friendship with Maxxie. It’s some of the most powerful and raw material the series will ever craft, and it’s buried deep amongst a barrage of offensive jokes and odious sex scenes.

Part of me wants to believe that the emotionally raw nature of the subject matter caused the writers to surround it among sillier and more nonsensical elements to make it more palatable. On some level, Skins is always doing this. It will confront a complicated, charged subject matter and then be so flippant about it that it can always cop-out if it needs to justify itself: “We’re just a television show, guys. We’re just here to entertain”

But usually there’s a certain level of dignity to Skins’s narratives. This episode seems to confirm a lot of the criticisms that Skins often finds lobbed at it: that it’s crass, unrealistic, and that it romanticizes certain questionable behaviors and actions. A few of the earlier episodes generated enough goodwill that I was willing to stick with the series, but it’s easy to see how someone might think that any of the series’ latent promise was merely a fluke.  

Grade: C-

Stray Observations:

-A note about the grade for “Maxxie and Anwar”: The scenes between Anwar and Maxxie are an A or A-, but everything else is somewhere in the D-range. So the difference has been split.

-Sid: “Michelle would not … would not fuck a horse”

-Sid’s father is played by the always welcome Peter Capaldi. Capaldi’s best scene has to be the one where he tells Sid that he wishes he were more like Tony. I had friends whose parents acted like that. But it’s especially sad and frustrating because we know that anyone should rather have a kid like Sid over one like Tony.

-All of Michelle’s self-justifying in order to accept Tony’s infidelity and general awfulness is heartbreaking. This and a number of other plot beats could feel like wheel-spinning but they don’t because of the storytelling structure distributing them sparsely.

-The crosscutting between Sid and Michelle’s dance and Cassie’s overdose is one of those instances where the show’s grand melodrama matches its visual scheme. There is the tiniest hints of Douglas Sirk to Skins (in so far as there is the hint of Sirk in all melodrama). For instance, the show finds people playing out expected social roles only to find themselves limited and frustrated. It also tries to overwhelm its viewers with its excessive, emotionally florid narratives.

-Sometimes Skins’s structure can be frustrating because it denies us access to certain characters. But sometimes it self-consciously and superbly reminds us of the limitations that come with following a particular character. One of these moments comes in Sid’s episode, where Jal yells at Sid forgetting his date plans with Cassie. It’s easy to imagine a whole story occurring just outside the episode with Cassie nervously pining for Sid and going to Jal for advice. And because of what we’ve learned about Jal and Cassie in their episodes, it makes those moments even sharper. Skins continues to use its history to be subtler and bolder. It’s crafted a shorthand where it can give brief glimpses of a character and tell us so much about them and their larger story.

-Tony’s manipulation reaches it pinnacle in Sid’s episode. First with the choir scene and later when he convinces Sid to pursue Michelle, only to win her back. It’s ugly stuff and the show doesn’t try to pretend it isn’t.

-What are we to make of Tony’s attempts to sleep with Maxxie? I don’t think Tony is gay or even bi. A little too often Tony barely comes off like a real human being.

-Another reason the Russia episode is so disappointing is because it’s centered on two of the more underserviced characters. Anwar, on paper, is one of the most fascinating characters. It’s such a unique choice to feature a character who is Pakistani and Muslim, and there was so much potential for that character but it gets largely squandered (especially as it relates to him trying to be an average teen while being a faithful Muslim – We get a brief look at that when Maxxie calls him a hypocrite).

-Skins is very, very, very loosely about what it means to grow up in a post-9/11 world. One notable (though so poorly handled) instance of this comes when Anwar is harassed at airport security because he’s Pakistani.

-“Maxxie and Anwar” isn’t the only episode whose focus is on more than one character. It’s rarely one of the show’s best storytelling modes (although there are exceptions).  

- “Really, Skins?” (Stupid Things Skins Did): The Russian episode pretty much qualifies in its entirety for this status.

Skins: Season One, "Jal" and Chris"

“Fuck it, I don’t care”

-Jal

Series One, Episode Three, “Jal”

Skins’s handling of race has always been one of its less well-conceived elements. This is troubling because the series is so consistently nuanced and provocative on a wide range of issues. Not that the series needed to necessarily make Jal’s (Larissa Wilson) episode center on the fact that she’s African American. And to the episode’s credit, the story isn’t entirely concerned with Jal’s identity as it relates to race. 

The episode is primarily about Jal as an individual who feels overlooked. She feels like she’s second best in everything she does. She’s ignored by her best friend Michelle in favor of her boyfriend Tony. Her father can only think of her as the embodiment of her absent mother. The school administrators can only imagine her as a PR success. All she has to really be proud of is her talent as a musician, and even that gets overshadowed.  

And this general story works. What doesn’t is the home life Skins has built for Jal. Her father is a hip hop mogul and her bothers are wannabe rap artists. It all smacks of carelessness and stereotype.

There is a flippant quality to Skins. This can make it an invigorating viewing experience (as in the next episode). But there’s another side to Skins’s desire to slaughter any sacred cow it can get its fumbling hands on. Sometimes it botches the whole execution and it just comes across as sensationalism for its own sake. 

That’s a shame because it’s not all poorly thought out here. Take the scene where the college director insists that Jal tell the newscaster that her musical success is due to her school helping her rise above a disadvantaged background. This, despite the fact that none of it is true. It’s super racist, and it’s also played as a frustratingly commonplace moment for Jal. Then there’s the awkward breakfast spent with Jal’s dad’s latest girlfriend, a white woman. It’s another smart look at racial politics that doesn't lose focus of the character. 

But if there’s something that really works against the episode it’s the character of Jal herself. Jal is the “normal” character of the group. She’s not facing any major psychological problems, and she’s not caught up in any major drama. She’s the rock of the group, a reliable foundation that they often take for granted. Being normal, in of itself, isn’t a problem for making a story interesting, but some of the broader elements here distract from the chance to capture those smaller moments that allow us to really understand who the character is. 

Grade: B

Series One, Episode Four, “Chris”

When I think about Skins, I often return to this episode. It’s not a perfect episode of television, and the show would go on to pull off better episodes, but it’s the first episode that makes the series’ tonal gumbo work. 

Skins has always been a tonal jumble. Bits of silly comedic business sit side-by-side with bits of heart wrenching drama. This should lead to tonal whiplash, but often doesn’t. This is usually because the show uses the comedy in order to easy into more serious material. 

“Chris” is one of the more effective deployments of this. For about two-thirds of its run, the episode is busy burying some truly dark subject matter. Chris (Joe Dempsie) has been abandoned by his mother. He ignores this by choosing to party with reckless abandon. But when his funds run out, he’s forced to finally confront his precarious situation. 

Skins’s best episodes tend to be rambling, crisscrossing journeys. They burn through plot and dash from plot point to plot point. This should be ill advised storytelling, but it works because of the ultimate end places these episodes arrive at. Are there things that don’t work in this episode? Yes, but that really doesn’t matter. The cumulative effect is more important. Skins is a show as much about a particular mood as any story. It’s the scattered memories of adolescent. 

It helps that this end place is a total gut punch and a necessary character shading. Chris, like a lot of the characters, has read more like a cartoon than a real person. Like Cassie’s episode, the episode provides an aching sadness and vulnerability to the character. He does drugs to avoid dealing with his overwhelming grief and anger, over his brother’s death, over his abandonment by both parents. He acts all chipper and happy-go-lucky because he might implode otherwise. 

Much of this works because of Dempsie’s performance. Dempsie commits whole hog to everything he does here. He could have chosen not to do the scenes where Chris is full-on nude, but, instead, he utilizes it for slapstick comedy as well as character development. This is important because Chris more than just about every other character is a bit of a cipher on paper. It’s fairly self-apparent what we’re supposed to get out of characters like Sid or Tony or Cassie (even if performances are crucial to why those characters work). But, on the face of it, Chris often seems to exist entirely for goofy comic relief (Anwar faces a similar problem that will become much more problematic in the second season). That makes the dramatic business here even more compelling, but it’s also helped by Dempsie’s presence anchoring the more comical moments to an emotional reality. 

Grade: A- 

Stray Observations:

-Michelle: “You play the clarinet, and I look shaggable” 

-The other story playing out along the margins is the weird relationship between Tony, Michelle and Sid. Tony’s dickeshness becomes increasingly more apparent, while the show pushes our sympathies towards Sid and Michelle (having Michelle not be entirely oblivious is incredibly important for making us care about her). The Skins writers are a little obsessed with this story and think it's a little more interesting than it actually is. They'll eventually exhaust its potential, but, for now, it remains mostly strong and isn't super distracting from the main plot-lines.

-Also, Cassie is being casually ignored by Sid, which is so heartbreaking.  

-The running joke about how everyone knows about Sid’s crush on Michelle is just so funny.  Everyone has had that friend who had that blatant unobtainable crush and were too stupid to just move on. 

-“Ethnic Clarinetist” – Such a nice, hilarious little touch.

-Effy barely counts as a character at this point, but her scenes do hint at who she would become. The answer: a kind of cynical, kind of awful, loner.  

-In case the meaning of the show’s title were not already apparent, Jal’s dad briefly explains it. Not only that but he does it while rapping!

-Chris dropped a baby! 

-Chris’s monologue at the cemetery is a really good showcase for Dempsie. 

-The pairing of Chris and Jal brings out such interesting qualities in both of them (Jal is perhaps never more interesting than when paired with Chris). 

-Everything related to the Chris-Angie interactions continues to be so, so wrong. 

-There were a lot of very old people attending Chris’s parties, which is just a little disconcerting and beggars belief. 

- Chris, to my mind, is the first generation’s unofficial heart. This will have important implications for later episodes. 

-“Really, Skins?” (Stupid Things Skins Did): The drug dealer subplot continues to be suspect. But is it more or less dubious than Jal’s brothers?

Skins: Season One, "Tony" and "Cassie"

“In the pilot episode of Skins, it’s possibly easy to overlook the story wherein a young boy sets off to a party to sell drugs and have sex, but in fact, does neither of these things, because, he senses that he has been manipulated by friends and does not feel ready to have sex with someone he does not know properly.”

-Bryan Elsley, Co-Creator of Skins

Series One, Episode One, “Tony”

Skins is sometimes a brilliant series: incisive, thoughtful, empathetic. Other times it’s, admittedly, a pretty terrible series: juvenile, broad, careless. Those two qualities often co-exist, and that means in order for anyone to appreciate how good the show is, they need to understand why it consistently makes narrative decisions that seem idiotic or misguided. 

Skins sets for itself the lofty goal of depicting the lives of adolescence as they actually are. Its target audience is the same age group that it depicts. While in some respects, thematically and emotionally, the show rarely ever talks down to its intended audience, in others, it struggles under the delusions that it needs to do incredibly silly and outrageous things to hold their attention. This primarily comes in the forms of some exceedingly dumb humor and some ludicrous plot developments. 

This means that Skins can be both really smart yet frequently unsubtle. However, this largely works (for reasons, I will get into). The pilot episode though fails to capture what makes the show so good. It’s not a particularly good pilot because it’s trying to serve multiple masters. Skins’s structure involves focusing on a single character per episode, but the pilot is trying to focus on one character, Tony (Nicholas Hoult), while also introducing every major character that we will come to follow. 

Additionally, though not quite as clearly, the show is making a mission statement: teens are essentially moral and good but faced with complicated, under-discussed issues. This statement is often missed because it gets buried along the way. Too often, people get caught up in the show’s excesses. There is a lot of partying, drinking and drug-use, and numerous sexual encounters. A lot of it isn’t realistic, and it isn’t meant to be. This is a hook, drawing in viewers through the visual and aesthetic pleasures of the glamor and raucousness of the lavish displays. But once, you get past the absurd excesses, it becomes apparent that Skins has a lot more on its mind than simple drama and shock value. 

The pilot, as previously mentioned, is a bit of a mess. There are glimpses of what the show will become, but in its attempt to drawl people in and set up several major plot developments, the show fails to cohere into something of true substance. It doesn’t help that the show features the head-scratcher sub-plot of a character buying pot (A development that, in of itself, isn’t bad, but is played for such strange comedic effect that it just feels awkward and grating)

But I think we should focus on one of said glimpses and give the show the benefit of the doubt. In particular, the stand out moment of the pilot, as mentioned above by series co-creator Bryan Elsley, features the interaction between Sid (Mike Bailey) and Cassie (Hannah Murray). Tony tries to set-up his best friend Sid with Cassie so that Sid can finally lose his virginity. The set-up for this has a lot of conversation that uncomfortably avoids the issue of consent. But we should not take this as the show’s ignorance of the issue, but it’s understanding of the lack of knowledge and sensitivity of teenagers. It also pay offs later when Sid chooses not to have sex with Cassie. He does this because he ultimately understands that to do so would be wrong. He, instead, chooses to wait.

Deep down Skins is a fairly traditional show. Its amorality is a guise. The series is obsessed with One True Pairings, and it places moral judgements left and right on people and their actions. The latter will become apparent in its treatment of Tony, who is a sociopathic monster manipulating his group of friends. Tony’s charisma and confidence initially disguise just how awful he is, but it becomes clear that season one’s primary aim is to dismantle Tony while spreading empathy to the people surrounding him.    

Grade: B-

Series One, Episode Two, “Cassie”

“Cassie” is the first episode of Skins that expresses the ambition and intelligence of the series. It’s a flawed episode (too much of the episode’s point-of-view shifts away from Cassie to Sid). But it’s a massive leap forward in terms of quality and far more exemplary of what Skins aims to do in its storytelling. It features the template for future episodes: a deep dive into the life and perspective of a single character. 

It’s a fairly radical departure from the first episode which split its time amongst multiple characters. And it demonstrates the value of this type of storytelling. By emphasizing the story of one character, the show can create a greater level of identification with that character, an intimacy that helps us empathize with them and better understand what makes them who they are. 

Choosing Cassie as the first real POV character (I don’t count Tony because the pilot strains to really develop his inner or personal life) is a bold choice. After all, she’s one of the least traditional or familiar characters on the show, and she’s dealing with emotional and mental health problems that people often have a difficult time comprehending. But that’s really the point; Skins will rarely shy away from controversial issues, and rarely will it fail to make the audience understand and grapple with the complicated problems facing its characters. 

That approach could leave room for a very PSA-style, but Skins avoids this by making its story not about the Big Issue but rather about its characters. There is a specificity to Skins’s stories that make them transcend a lot of their shortcomings. This is a story about anorexia, but the show really doesn’t feel like hammering home that Cassie is anorexic (although, the “Eat!” text messages come pretty close) or making this is the only thing that defines her. 

The episode is also concerned with the intersection of other issues plaguing Cassie: her problematic home life, her feelings of inadequacy and her desire to be with Sid as an extension of this. Through this we can understand why Cassie might become anorexic. Neglected by her parents and ignored or misrepresented by her peers, she formed a low sense of self-worth. Cassie presents herself with a loopy confidence, but we’re supposed to understand that it’s all an act. 

I’m going to state something that I find to be a crucial centerpiece to the show’s success: the show’s greatest strength comes in the form of mapping out mental landscapes. The series is interested in placing us in the headspace of a character, and insisting that we recognize where a character is coming from. After all, Cassie is introduced in the pilot as a fairly one-note joke and will grow into one of the more complex and tragic characters on the series. That’s what Skins is constantly aiming for. I can forgive its shortcomings because its bolder and more thoughtful than many other series, especially of its genre.

Grade: B+

Stray Observations:

-“Skins” refers to the rolling papers used to make cigarettes. It also doubles as a metaphor for getting under the skin of the characters and getting to know them (Like I said, not always a subtle series, but I think it’s a nice metaphor even if it’s a little obvious)

-Before we overstate the partying craziness, we should actually take a serious look at the two major depictions of parties in these episodes. The pilot features a party but it’s treated mockingly. The second episode shows the aftermath of a party, but while the house is a wreck, the truly notable elements are the fact that the party centered on a food fight and that the party-goers were essentially just a core group of friends. 

-A lot of what makes the show work are its performances. Tony works, in large part, due to Hoult’s overwhelming magnetism. Murray also turns Cassie into so much more than an eccentric weirdo; she’s vulnerable and anxious, and there’s a lot of nice adolescent posturing. 

-Cassie’s episode features a number of lovely small moments, such as Cassie explaining to Sid how she avoids people noticing that she doesn’t eat. But my personal favorite has to be Cassie saying “Look up if you like me” as Sid passes by. I feel like a lesser show would have scrapped a moment like that, but for Skins it’s those small moments that it’s really interested in depicting. It’s going to couch them among some broad bits of comedic business, but it also isn’t afraid to remind you of those painful adolescent experiences just about everyone has had. 

-When Sid asks his friends for help with the drug money problem, they quickly abandon him. Everyone’s so wrapped up in their own issues to even care. This is a reoccurring theme of the show, the interconnectedness of friends and yet the simultaneous disconnect from them. Everyone is going through their own issues but rarely do we take the time out to notice those problems because we’re so wrapped up in our own drama. 

-Abigail is treated pretty derisively in the pilot because we’re largely seeing things from Tony’s perspective and he treats just about everyone with contempt. This treatment will continue, but take notice that in Cassie’s episode we briefly meet Abigail’s mother and it makes a lot of things snap into focus for that character.  

-There are a lot of (mostly) understated class tensions going on throughout the series and this can be particularly seen in the pilot. The main characters attend a public school and attend the party of a bunch of stuck-up rich, private school kids. The economic situations of the characters vary widely and there is a lot of interesting commentary playing out in the background. 

-Maxxie’s depiction is problematic and a little stereotypical (He borders on token gay character status). This is partly reconciled in the second generation’s episodes with the introduction of more nuanced depictions and discussions of sexuality. But it's still incredibly disappointing.

-For that matter, the group of friends is a little too neatly split amongst a cross section of all possible genders, races and sexual orientations. 

-Chris’s major season-long storyline is also super problematic, and already being uncomfortably hinted at.

-Skins's depiction of parents is a little questionable. There aren't a lot of competent, responsible adult figures presented. This isn't going to always be the case, but it's a consistent portrayal throughout the show's run. The best argument in its favor is that, sometimes, it's intended to be the perspective of the character on their parents and not necessarily an entirely accurate look at those individuals. 

-“Really, Skins?” (Stupid Things Skins Did): The Polish girl at the party is just so bizarre and a little offensive. The car rolling into the river is similarly dumb but more forgivable. But we haven't even gotten around to the truly idiotic moments of the series.