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