Skins: Season Two, "Tony" and "Effy"

Series Two, Episode Six, “Tony”

Your mileage will vary on how much you get out of “Tony”. It amounts to an episode about how Tony got his mojo back. 

This is not necessarily a narrative a certain corner of Skins’s audience (myself included) is particularly interested in. After all, this is a fairly awful human being and his redemptive arc has tried far too hard to create sympathy for a character that really hasn’t earned it. The show hinted at character progression towards the end of the first season and that felt mostly natural (if not also a little rushed). But the show had to use an external development to create an internal shift. And it hasn’t proven nearly as effective has intended. It also doesn’t help that we get glimmers of the Old Tony, the shitty, sadistically clever bastard who messes with people out of a deep sense of insecurity. 

We see this Tony in the opening and closing scenes of the episode, the only scenes that can be said to have happened in a literal reality. Because the other element that makes “Tony” a hard to take episode is that it’s a bizarre blend of Freudian and Jungian symbolism played with absolute sincerity. Let’s ignore for the moment whether this works, and take a moment to remember that the show has never told its narrative in this manner before. I’m not saying that it’s not allowed to. But Skins has at least had some consistency as to how it tells its stories and the ways it’s capable of telling them. Even when it gets semi-adventurous, it’s usually in a manner of perspective or tone, not necessarily in fundamental storytelling genetics. 

So besides the questionable choice of storytelling, how good is it at actually telling this type of story? The results are mixed. It’s a tiny bit sexy but mostly it’s obtuse and obscure. The scenes with the burn-victim soldier/professor don’t feel like they’re of a piece with everything else. Too much of what the show is trying to say is incredibly obvious, while other elements are so thoroughly enigmatic as to be incomprehensible.

If you’re able to embrace the story and accept what it’s going for, there’s certainly a mysterious allure to the episode (For one thing, it’s one of the best directed episodes of the series). But the real question is whether Tony’s trip of self-discovery had to take place in such a cryptic and abstract way (or, for that matter, at all). 

Grade: B

 

Series Two, Episode Seven, “Effy” 

Skins has a Second Season Problem (one not isolated to this generation of characters). The writers burn through all the story they have to tell with a group of characters and then scramble to create drama and say meaningful things in the following season. The Tony-Michelle-Sid-Cassie story is a darker, more toxic take on what already occurred last season. 

The series’ second seasons aren’t devoid of value. After all, this is a narratively more adventurous season that’s pushing its characters into interesting emotional territory. Even if it’s not always successfully doing what it’s attempting, I appreciate that it is reaching for it in the first place. 

But we can already see that the show is exhausting its potential with this group of characters.

This is an episode designed to essentially act as a back-door pilot for the next season. Effy is going to be the character that bridges the two generations of characters. She’s young enough that she doesn’t have to be written off just yet, and the writers are exploring how she’ll act as her own force of drama in the seasons to come. If we have doubts about the long-term shelf life of the show, the writers are attempting to assure us that they can still find stories about new characters. 

And that bodes well. Frankly, Effy already appears to be a more intriguing center of conflict than her brother. There’s a gleeful wheeling-dealing quality to her manipulations and she does them in the name of doing something good (even if that’s very low on the list of reasons she does it). She’s playing the mind-games that Tony was known for in the first season, but in a different vein informed by her gender and her different personality. 

There’s a meta quality here. Effy derisively refers to the love rhombus drama as a “bad soap opera” and intervenes to end the tedium of it. At this stage, Effy sort of knows she’s a television character (this won’t remain true for later seasons). By the end of the episode, everyone is coupled up, and Effy has proven herself a character worthy of our ongoing interest. She’s incredibly perceptive of human behavior, and yet (dramatic irony alert) she barely understands herself (The possibilities! *he said sarcastically*) 

This is a smart use of this character without detracting from the larger, on-going narrative. It integrates her in, while hinting at a life beyond the typical stories we’ve been getting from the rest of the first generation (including the introduction of other future second generation alum daffy Pandora)

Grade: B

Skins: Season Two, "Michelle" and "Chris"

Series Two, Episode Four, “Michelle”

It’s hard to buy Michelle and Sid’s anguished feelings over their current relationships with Tony. It requires us to ignore a lot of dark personal history from last season. The show is using the bus accident to wipe the slate clean with the character. 

And even if we do accept it, Michelle and Sid’s behavior (and that of the rest of the characters more broadly) has been overly insensitive. We’re supposed to read this as the narcissism and selfishness of adolescence (We know that Michelle, in particular, is a an incredibly selfish character, but a lot of this is due to faux-superficiality). But it still rings a little bit falsely. It feels too much like the writers trying to goose up drama where it no longer exists.

After all, the show already resolved the tension arising from Sid’s feelings towards Michelle. Pushing the two characters together feels like insincere backtracking. The relationship looks desperate, a sad coping mechanism rather than a worthwhile partnership. But, on some level, the show wants us to take this relationship seriously. It’s doomed to fail out of narrative necessity but there’s real emotion there. 

Of course, that’s just a very small portion of “Michelle”, an episode that feels like a back-to-basics story after the early, somewhat adventurous outings of the beginning of the season (Along with the last episode “Sid”, although that was surprisingly more dramatic than typical Skins-fare). It’s back to the wacky comedy and searing pathos that the show does best, and not the structural gambits of the first two episodes. 

The episode is the closest Skins could get to doing a sitcom episode without becoming a full-on sitcom. Even the central conflict between Michelle and her new step-sister and its “We’re not so different you and I” resolution feels like something from a TGIF comedy (a lot of the business at the beach especially the camping-related mishaps reads like this). Michelle’s step-sister does serve as a nice (if especially obvious) foil to Michelle. She’s, as Michelle assesses, “not really a bitch”, but pretending to be one because she believes she needs to be and everyone has come to anticipate that from her. Michelle (by design) might as well be talking about herself.

Grade: B

Series Two, Episode Five, “Chris”

Trying to manage the balance between the persona we project and the inner person that hides is a theme that continues into this episode. This is true of the episode’s focal point Chris, but also of his foil and partner-in-crime Jal, as well as Cassie. The two relationships the episode establishes between Chris and Jal, and Chris and Cassie are important for the season going forward and simply two of the more effective, well-realized character pairings. 

Chris is expelled from school and kicked out of the on-school housing. This should be devastating news. But, in his typical carefree way, Chris shrugs it off as if it’s no big deal. The story that follows really isn’t that strong. Chris uses career services to get a job selling houses, but this comedic business is broad and silly. 

What is strong is Chris’s budding romance with Jal. Jal and Chris are such polar-opposites that they bring out the best of both characters and actors. It helps that Joseph Dempsie and Larissa Wilson have enormous chemistry. They light up in eachother’s presence.

It also helps that the characters aren’t burdened with the star-crossed lover narratives of Sid, Cassie, Michelle and Tony (particularly Sid and Cassie). Their relationship is natural and believable and builds off previous character development and interactions. It’s also a healthy relationship, which contrasts starkly with all the other relationships. The two push the other to be the best possible version of themselves, which is the ultimate purpose of a good relationship. 

They’re also well-paired for reasons that might not have been immediately obvious but that the episode plainly spells out. Both have been abandoned by parents. However, how they’ve reacted to this trauma has been vastly different. Chris has taken a self-destructive path, while Jal has steeled herself. As Jal points out, lots of people have experienced what Chris has; that doesn’t give him an excuse to constantly fuck-up (as he severely does here by hooking up with *sigh* Angie – I thought we were done with her too). 

The episode doesn’t go into this but Cassie suffers from similar past trauma. Her parents have been so neglectful as to be essentially a non-presence. Her self-destructive streak isn’t all that different from Chris’s, as she copes by sleeping around and doing drugs. We like to believe our problems are unique and special but that frequently isn’t the case. That doesn’t diminish the importance of them, but it also doesn’t excuse bad behavior and a lousy attitude.  

Grade: B+

Stray Observations:

-The final scenes on the beach are pretty gorgeous, especially Sid and Michelle silhouetted against the sunrise. 

-The broken watch is an obvious symbol even by Skins's standards.

-I love Jal interrogating Tony, Sid, Maxxie, and Chris in the bar. The normal friend having to put up with the ridiculous drama of her outsized friends. 

-Cassie’s toxic behavior would be despicable if the show hadn’t already done so much work already to make her a sympathetic and tragic figure. 

-I’m not sure how being a real estate agent works over in England, but I have to imagine it requires having a license to perform. 

-Jal buys Chris’s argument to win her back a little too easily. Yes, she is pregnant with his child, but that doesn’t excuse his terrible behavior.

-I’m assuming that’s Larissa Wilson’s actual tattoo that we see here because I don’t really buy the character of Jal getting a tattoo like that.

Skins: Season Two, "Sketch" and "Sid"

Series Two, Episode Two, “Sketch”

The first two episodes of this season are doing very few favors for Skins. Before we get into the structural and character choices here that don’t work, I think we can all agree we need to deal with the obvious. A musical that’s essentially “9/11: The Musical” is in incredibly poor taste. Not that Skins isn’t aware of this. The show is intentionally being flippant and darkly comical about it. And no matter how politically incorrect it may be (the answer: incredibly so), it’s still hilarious because it’s so shocking and unexpected. But why do it at all in the first place? 

Because it can.

This is a mindset that also explains the focus on Sketch (Aimee-Ffion Edwards), a character who is stalking and obsessed with Maxxie. The show is striking a delicate balance. It wants us to be disgusted by Sketch’s actions and yet sympathize with her all the same. Because Sketch is a pitiable character, and the episode goes extensively out of its way to underline this. Sketch’s home-life is devastatingly sad. She lives with her disabled mother, who is incapable of doing just about anything without the help of her daughter. Sketch is stuck due to her mother’s dependence on her, and thus she’s desperate to escape her circumstances. This is why she projects onto Maxxie all these things just aren’t true or realistic. 

None of this hard to comprehend, and it’s largely well-handled. However, it also feels unnecessary. Why did the series require a new character? More importantly, why did it require this character? It’s a weirdly specific story and character to invest so much time in, especially considering this cast of characters only has one season left before they’re written out of the show. 

For instance, Anwar doesn’t a get a standalone episode this season. Instead, Sketch preys on Anwar’s vulnerability and desire for sex and companionship. Anwar becomes essentially comic relief to prop the story of a character we’ve just met and have been given little reason to care about. 

Grade: B-

Series Two, Episode Three, “Sid”

This is more like it.

After two uneven, uncertain efforts, Skins gets back on track. It does this by reemphasizing the balance that finds the series at its best: the combination of the mundane and the exceptional. Take the family dinner, which is an incredibly well-observed commonplace moment (if not a little forgivably clichéd). The episode is filled with several ordinary, everyday moments before it’s pierced with singular tragedy and shifts gears. 

On some level, Skins is about how our identities are formed partly by our complicated relationship with our parents. The way Anwar’s mother smothers him has made him into a doofy mama’s boy. The neglectful upbringing of Tony and Effy turned them into ungrateful wretches, while Cassie’s similar poor parentage caused her to become a basketcase. Jal fears she’ll end up like the mother who walked out on her family, while Chris buries his feelings about his own abandonment by his parents. 

“Sid” draws this theme out further by having Sid’s grandfather visit, demonstrating how the effects of upbringing have a ripple effect, passed down from generation to generation. Sid acts the way he does partly out of fear that his dad sees him as a fuckup, but it’s more complicated than that. His dad fears for his son because he himself was seen as failure in the eyes of his own father. 

Sid finally gets validation from his father, only for his father to suddenly die. Sid acts like nothing has happened, but he’s burying his grief because his father was one of the few constants in his life. This is especially true after he breaks up with Cassie after misinterpreting events witnessed over a webcam (in one of the sillier moments in the episode, which is slightly made up for by the breakup itself which is heartbreaking). 

Sid goes to a party, hoping to distract himself from his grief, but it only serves to isolate him further. He wants to be comforted by his friend Tony, but Tony has been so out of commission as of late that it seems like a hopeless cause. 

Then comes the signature moment of the episode. All of the sound on the soundtrack drops out except for the blaring of the song by the Crystal Castles and wordlessly the episode finds Sid collapsing into the arms of Tony. They’re surrounded by the dancing crowd, but it all sort of fades out as we hone in on this harrowing, intimate moment. 

The second season of Skins is, in part, about the loss of innocence. It’s about how we come to accept that eventually we’re going to have learn to live in this world on our own. It’s about how we learn about the impermanence of things in this world and this life. This recognition starts here and will become more pronounced in the back-half of the season.

Grade: A-

Stray Observations:

-Jal is part of the pit band for the musical and looks oh-so-enthused about it. Those skyscraper-shaped hats are the epitome of dorky.

-Sketch’s treatment of her mother in order to perform in the play is horrifying. The season has an incredibly difficult time engendering any sympathy for Sketch.

-The specificity of Sketch’s story makes it clear that this is a story that the writers intentionally set out to tell this season. I’m not entirely sure what to make of that. 

-Sid breaks up with Cassie after seeing his father’s treatment by his mother. Despite the general absence of parents in the series, it should be noted that one of the show's consistent psychological and thematic interests is the way people fear they'll end up just like their parents.

-Chris’s reaction to the play is priceless. More please!

Skins: Season Two, "Tony and Maxxie"

Oh Skins and your weird structural problems. Skins’s second season is one of the more poorly structured seasons on both a micro and macro level. “Tony and Maxxie” seems like the weird Faustian bargain of writers who wanted to tell more of Maxxie’s story but didn’t have enough episodes to do a standalone episode. Since, after all, they also needed to deal with the aftermath of Tony surviving the accident from last season’s finale. And Tony gets an episode later because his prominence to the larger season narrative is a far more pressing than Maxxie’s.

Don’t get me wrong. Maxxie is a big part of the season long narrative, but in narratively strange and confusing ways (but we’ll get to that in more detail in the review of the next episode). I’m all for expanding this underwritten character, but he doesn’t seem to have a real personality. He likes dancing and he wants to pursue it as a career. But that’s about it. 

What’s far more revealing is Maxxie’s interactions with his father (Mitch Hewer). Maxxie’s fights with his father over choosing his own path in life feel real. What’s more, neither of them is entirely right or wrong; they each have a perspective and are simply trying to do what’s best. Skins is at its best when it’s validating multiple perspectives then having them clash. 

But the episode’s interests lie far more squarely with Tony’s circumstances. The show is trying to pull off a tricky balance. Tony’s accident is intended as a humbling situation. But it’s also meant to inspire sympathy for a character who for all of last season could barely register empathy from us. Tony is certainly far more sympathetic here, but the narrative context required to achieve this is so extreme that it still remains hard to buy. This version of Tony doesn’t really align strongly enough with what we’ve previously seen of the character. This might be the point entirely. But it still doesn’t entirely work (It’ll prove more effective in later episodes as we get acclimated to the shift) 

Another new dynamic that proves hard to believe is the character shifts seen in Sid and Michelle. It feels like a regression for the character progress of both of them. It would be fine for them to feel upset over Tony’s injury. But they should also have mixed feelings. Tony, after all, was a cruel dick to both of them, and being disabled doesn’t suddenly even the score. 

The reset on these characters and their relationships feels like an easy way for the writers to wring drama out of a largely played out story. The love rhombus served its purpose last season, but it feels like an unnecessary repetition in some respects here. The story that would best reward what came before might have had Tony recovering his memory and in the process coming to terms with his past actions. But the series wants to treat them as if they’re a moot point.

Grade: B

Skins: Season One, "Everyone"

Series One, Episode Nine, “Everyone”

Skins will rarely be all that good at either premieres or finales. “Everyone” is a measured episode, balancing out its time amongst most of the characters (minus the consistently put-upon Jal) and wrapping up the season’s major narratives. It also rarely has anything to say we didn’t already know or inadequately lays down new storylines. 

Without the deep dives of the previous set of episodes, the finale is occasionally uncertain what to do with its newfound structure. Skins is much better as a character study than a coherent long-run narrative. The series is not consistently-enough written episode to episode to make all of its story fragments come together into some bigger, grander statement. It’s a series fueled by emotional earnestness not internal consistency. 

So what doesn’t work? Well, the Cassie and Sid stuff is largely sweet, but simultaneously feels like a stalling tactic (until that lovely closing image where they hold hands). Chris was never going to end up with Angie because Skins at least has some sense of realism. Tony’s desire to turn himself around and be a decent person fails to register because not enough groundwork has been laid down. 

The one story that does work, Anwar and Maxxie’s, is the story the season has most poorly serviced. This is primarily due to the episode using Anwar and Maxxie’s story as its fulcrum, as Anwar’s 17th birthday creates a centerpiece for the episode. The story is made all the more beautiful and moving for how it ends with Anwar’s dad (played by Inder Manocha) casually accepting Maxxie’s sexuality. His speech deserves to be reprinted here in full:

“It's a fucking stupid, messed up world. I've got my God; he speaks to me every day. Some things I just can't work out, so I leave them be. Okay? Even if I think they're wrong. Because I know, one day he'll make me understand. I've got that trust; it's called belief. I'm a lucky man.”

That scene is the sort of lifeblood of Skins. Skins is excellent at drawing on the connections in relationships. What Skins understands particularly well is that for most of us we’re scared if we reveal our true selves to someone that they’ll reject us. Usually those people who would accept our true selves are right there in front of us, but we’re often too insecure or ignorant to realize it.

Those moments are to be found throughout this episode in both comedic and dramatic forms. Effy telling Tony he’s a “wanker” is amusing, but also feels like a culmination of both of those characters’ stories and their relationship. Tony aiding Sid in his pursuit of Cassie shows his growth as a person, even if stealing Mr. Jenkins’ car reveals this change is only incremental. 

The previous episode was a better summation of what this season was attempting. The two major arcs of Tony’s comeuppance and Sid’s self-actualization were fulfilled (not always in a well-handled manner, but still in a narratively understandable fashion). This is a problem inherent to Skins, which is more interested in meandering down interesting (sometimes head-scratchable) tangents than telling a straightforward, cleanly tied-up story. The show tends to arrive at finales clueless how to move forward. But those tangents often produce satisfying, beautiful moments, and, thus, it’s occasionally easy to forgive the series. 

Grade: B

Stray Observations:

-Tony gets hit by a bus. Because, why not. And then a cover of Cat Steven’s “Wild World” takes place. This moment really shouldn’t work. It’s strange and totally at odds with the storytelling Skins previously established. But it’s so exuberant and out-of-left field that it somehow manages to make some sort of sense. 

-There’s a great little moment where Jal, Maxxie and Anwar are sitting down with partners, exhausted from dancing too much. It’s such a well-observed moment. 

-To its credit, Skins recognizes the impracticality of Chris and Angie’s relationship, and how it is impossible to exist long-term. 

“Really, Skins?” (Stupid Things Skins Did): Sid getting mistaken for a mentally unstable person. The implication that Angie’s fiancé is a closeted gay. Anwar’s sisters essentially pimping out a girl to Anwar. The big fight that breaks out at the party (particularly Anwar busting out expert karate moves).

Skins: Season One, "Michelle" and "Effy"

Series One, Episode Seven, “Michelle”

Skins has an incredible ability to recover. Its episodic structuring is both a blessing and a curse. The series is experimental, playing around with genre, tone and narrative week-to-week. But sometimes the writers aren’t particularly adept at handling one type of story versus another. Yet whenever it falls flat on its face (rarely as spectacularly as “The Russian Episode”), it can always get back up and wholly reinvent itself. 

“Michelle”, for all its shortcomings (for instance, the stuff with Michelle’s mother is broad and obvious, and Tony’s manipulations rid Michelle of agency), is a breath of fresh air after the disaster of the previous episode. The show moves on like hardly anything ever happened. A few plot points carry over, but they exist entirely outside of the context of the episode they took place in. While “Michelle” isn’t the best thing the show has done, its strengths are heightened by being placed directly after “Maxxie and Anwar”.

So let’s highlight those. Must notably, there is Michelle (April Pearson) as an active as opposed to a passive character. Michelle is a frustrating character. This is partly by design. She’s bought into her image as popular, attractive princess, and she’s doing everything to maintain that image. But accepting this means overlooking the excessive bad behavior of Tony. Her conception of a relationship seems stuck back in the 1950’s. 

But Michelle finally stands up for herself, and that make her infinitely more appealing. The best moments of the episode are the beginning and end scenes. Skins is at its best when it simply watches a character think and allows us to process where they’re at psychologically. Crosscutting between Michelle and a carefree Tony isn’t even necessary. We’ve been with these characters for six episodes and we know enough about what’s taking place to understand what Michelle must be feeling. 

And then Michelle punches Tony. It’s awesome and deserved. While it’s certainly the cooler moment, the more important moment comes later when Michelle rejects Tony. The episode gives us just the hint that Michelle is considering accepting it. But it would be dishonest, and it would work against all the character work the rest of the episode lays for Michelle.

Grade: B+

Series One, Episode Eight, “Effy”

“Effy” is a problematic episode. The character this episode is ostensibly about is sidelined. As a result, the episode essentially becomes another episode about Tony, a character the show is trying desperately to create sympathy for after being the absolute worst since day one. Making Tony the focus in an episode about Effy (Kaya Scodelario) isn’t entirely unreasonable. After all, Effy is Tony’s sister and so his presence makes sense, but it feels unfortunate to turn Effy into a damsel-in-distress in order to humanize Tony. 

Effy will become a fully-formed character in later seasons. In time, she’ll become essentially the lynchpin for the series. That isn’t apparent here though (It’s hard to say just how much of what came to happen after the first generation was planned out, but it does appear to be very little). Effy is a cipher by design. That would have made digging into her character interesting, but a lot of what takes place here is vague and underdeveloped. And then halfway through things shift to a complete emphasis on Tony. 

The character work here on Tony is arguably necessary. Tony has been another enigma. Here and in the last episode, we witness Tony unravel, and it’s fascinating. Tony has been so thoroughly in control that it’s surprising to see him be so unconvincing and a frayed-wired mess. I don’t know if I entirely buy all of this, but it’s such a welcome change of pace that it almost doesn’t matter. 

Tony has long deserved some comeuppance. I’m just not sure it needed to come in the form that the episode chooses (or, not to get into too much detail, the season finale chooses). The character of Josh is inconsistent with what we learned from last episode (even if Tony’s actions towards him could be seen to have caused this shift in personality). Similarly, Effy’s actions here don’t seem to fit with what we know. Effy is reckless and burdened with ennui, but she’s not stupid. Taking “heroin” just doesn’t fit her MO (although, perhaps I'm reading into this a little too much with foreknowledge). 

This is part of a larger problem regarding how the writers handle the relationship of Tony with Sid and Michelle. It’s easier to overlook this in the first season but it will become more glaring in the following season. On some level, the writers want us to like Tony, and they want us to root for his relationships with Michelle and Sid, even though they’re incredibly toxic.

Grade: B-

Stray Observations:

-The opening sequence of "Michelle" is one of the best directed moments of the entire series. It's psychologically fraught and real, it's melodramatic, it's tense, it's funny. It's all the elements of the show at its best with a visual thoughtfulness and dynamism to match.

-Michelle is actually a pretty delightful character underneath all the entitled pretty girl posturing. She’s knowingly funny, and she’s culturally literate. Look at her quoting the Bogart-Bacall classic To Have and To Have Not.

-I think “Michelle” makes the line of connection between Michelle’s mother’s behavior and her own a little too finely. Usually the series is a little more oblique regarding this sort of thing.

-Tony’s actions in “Michelle” are as appalling as they’ve ever been (his manipulation of Abigail to screw over Josh is just disgusting), but they’re more complicated because the show seems like it’s trying to inspire sympathy for the frazzled Tony. It’s also more troubling because it takes time out from what is Michelle’s episode to wallow in Tony’s terribleness. And it makes the episode ultimately about Tony and Michelle’s relationship, even though the episode is really about Michelle accepting her need to be her own person. 

-Michelle and Jal’s relationship is an underused one. It brings out nice notes in both characters. 

-Jal’s casual listing of Tony’s conquests to Michelle is played comically but it’s also more than a little alarming. As is the justification, “It’s only Tony, right?” There’s a whole lot about social conditioning and gender packed into that small moment. 

-Josh is almost too perfect as presented in “Michelle”. Although the following episode does a complete, not entirely plausible, one-eighty.

-Michelle and Sid’s character arcs are ultimately about learning some level of self-respect, which makes it fitting that they choose not to sleep together. 

-The hang out at Chris’s dorm room is far more reflective of what it’s like to hang with friends in high school (or sixth form school, as it were). Again, I think we tend to overlook these details in favor of the lewder elements of the series. Also, Chris’s fish tank is pretty sweet. 

-Sid and Cassie’s relationship doesn’t get nearly the amount of story time it deserves. It’s far more interesting and nuanced than anything between Tony and Michelle. But it keeps getting pushed to the margins. 

-Sid accurately diagnoses why Tony has been manipulating everyone. Tony is bored and toying people for his own private amusement.