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“Skins” Retro Recap (3.03): “Thomas”

Before Thomas, three things:

1) If you’re feeling peckish (Hi, Lauren!), go ahead and get a snack; there is so much weed in this episode you’re gonna end up eating the paper out of your printer if you don’t have any Cheetos close by.

2) If you’ve been in a hole or, I dunno, wearing some kind of SPF 100+ awesomescreen or something, I am pleased to tell you that AfterEllen.com’s Skins retro recaps are perfect when paired with a delicious assortment of LOLs at RophyDoes.com. Rophy are all up in this recap too, with graphics and screencaps and commentary.

3) My BFF just started watching Skins for the first time ever, which is my heart’s greatest delight because of G-chat messages like this: “Cook scares me so much when he laughs big, like the sound waves coming out of his mouth will FREEZE everything – and then he will eat it. With brown sauce.”

Hi, this is Thomas. He is so glad to met you.

Thomas just moved here from Congo and is, in fact, wearing every piece of clothing he owns because London’s weather is a persnickety little mistress. We’ll get to that in a second, because Effy’s got some insight as usual, but first Thomas has got to dance. And phone his mum. Then he’s got to go to the store to find out why the mardy bloke with the baseball bat sold him a bum phone card. (Just be glad he didn’t bash your head in with that bat for no reason, Thomas. You never know. You just never know.)

Thomas doesn’t have much in the way of money, so he hungrily eyes a doughnut display while the shop owner smacks down some little kids who are trying to nick sweets. The kids wrestle the bat away and Thomas comes to the rescue, warning them to stop picking on people twice their size and stop swearing because: “C–t is a very bad word. Very bad. Even in England, I think.”

That’s funny. If you said that on primetime TV in America, the FCC would fine you one hundred badrillion dollars.

The shop owner is thankful for Thomas’ help; he could have just stolen some food, but Thomas is a good guy (in series three), so he gets a big brown bag of doughtnuts as a thank you – which he devours at a bus stop. (Someone should tell Thomas about the Glycemic Index; he’s going to be starving in half an hour!)

The camera keeps pushing in closer and closer and closer before – bam! – speedy-quick panning out to reveal Effy and Panda sitting next to Thomas on the bus bench. Which is just so, so Skins; I love it. I love how the camera adds an whole other layer to these stories.

Panda is gawking, of course. And Effy is bored, of course. “Wow, you’ve got a whacker lot of doughnuts,” Panda finally says, and Thomas remembers his manners and offers her one. She eats it almost as fast as he did and then garbles something that means “juice,” I think, because Effy hands Panda something that looks like fizzy and apple-y. Thomas reaches past Panda to give Effy a doughnut.

Panda: Effy doesn’t do doughtnuts.

Thomas: No? What does Effy do?

Panda: Drugs.

To prove the point, Effy exhales a perfect smoke ring.

Thomas: I’m Thomas. I’m very pleased to meet you.

Effy: [bored, mocking a little] I’m Effy. Very pleased to meet you.

Thomas: I came yesterday, all the way from Africa. This place is exceedingly cold.

Effy: Bummer.

Do you ever feel like you want to watch Effy and Naomi have an apathetic zing-off? Thomas is actually freezing, and Effy’s all, “Meh.” Katie’s like, “My family has lost our house.” And Naomi’s all, “Well, that was careless.”

Anyway, Panda pukes for the second time in three episodes, because what’s that old children’s rhyme from the sea? Beer before liquor, never been sicker? Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear? Oh, right – Doughtnuts before juice before hash is rash.

So, Panda is just rat-arsed and Thomas carries her to Effy’s house like a sack of potatoes or, you know, a goat. He whisks her up the stairs and deposits her on a chair and Effy is just starting to warm up to him when she hears some wailing and thrashing around going on in her parents’ room. Thomas is like, “Do not worry; I deal with wild animals all the time in Congo.”

But it’s just Effy’s mum having an affair. “I’m Thomas,” Thomas says, reaching out to shake a naked Anthea’s hand. “So glad to meet you.”

Back at home, Thomas is rudely awakened by a punch in the face by Mackenzie Crook. Mackenzie steps over Thomas’ body, walks in the door, and instructs his goons to “put on the kettle, please, lads.” And I think it’s time for us to talk about tea.

In my Coronation Street recap last week, I mentioned that the characters drink a gratuitous amount of tea, even by British standards, and, you guys, I have never seen such a national outcry! I always knew tea was a thing in Britain. I studied British history at university and I have backpacked around the UK three times. I feel like I am a real student of non-American cultures, but it turns out all I really needed – educationally-speaking – was to question the usefulness of guzzling that much tea.

After your many, wonderful, enlightening comments, and a fair bit of outside reading, I have learned the tea is the most refreshing of all beverages. It can prolong drunkenness, cure a hangover, mend a broken heart, substitute as fuel for automobiles and farm machinery, be given as an elixir to put a stopper in death, subvert therapy, and bring together an entire country in times if national crisis.

And see, Mackenzie Crook just gave us another one: Need to threaten a teenage tenant? Make a cup of tea!

Actually, though, Mackenzie Crook is making a cup of noodles, which his goons spike with Tabasco sauce or something equally nauseating, and Mackenzie Crook drinks that cup of noodles; he drinks it right in Thomas’ face so Thomas will “know what kind of man he’s dealing with!” And then he tosses the cup off the balcony and tells Thomas he owes him 300 pounds by Desperate Housewives, or … I’m not really sure. Something menacing though, I think. And Thomas can’t have that, because his mum is coming at the end of the week and she is a “very fussy lady.”

Thomas records a lullaby for his little brother and sister, and then tries to get construction work the next day. Instead he gets sent to a staffing agency where an administrative assistant grills him about his qualifications: Special skills? “I play all musical instruments. Also, I run very, very fast, like a dog. Also, I am very mathematical; I will solve any equation.” Qualifications? “Top of my class at school, all As. The village was very proud.”

He goes on to explain how he herds the goats in his village before sunrise, and the assistant stops him mid-sentence, all, “I’m not entirely sure we can offer you gainful employment, but you should be able to get into Harvard without any trouble at all.”

In the meantime, though, he’s off to Roundview to polish the floors. Kids these days! No respect! They rock out of class and leave their crisp and candy wrappers all over the place! Plus, Kate Fitch!

Katie: Effy, Effy, wait up! Look, I got a new top! It’s cool, isn’t it? Well, when you’ve got tits like mine, you’ve got to flash them a little bit, haven’t you?

Effy: Sorry?

Katie: Breasts, girl. You should try it.

Effy: Yeah, OK. Here? Or, do you want to skive off the rest of the day and go to my house?

[Rophy says: HURRAHH!!!!]

Wait, no – sorry. It’s 4:45 in the morning. I must have dozed off. Let’s try that again.

Katie: Breasts, girl. You should try it.

Effy: I never try.

Katie: Huh?

I love how Katie says, “Huh.” I can’t tell if she really didn’t hear Effy, or if the phrase “I never try” is incomprehensible to her. Either way, she rounds on Emily, who has just caught up with her: “STOP F-CKING FOLLOWING ME, WILL YOU?” Emily tries to explain that she wasn’t following her, but Katie just huffs away to try harder somewhere else.

Emily is left alone in the hall with Thomas.

Thomas: Strange place, this college.

Emily: Sorry?

Thomas: Everyone is loud, and they care about nothing.

Emily: Yeah, you’re right.

Thomas: You are the same as your sister.

Emily: I’m not the same as her!

Thomas: No? Maybe you are a little more pretty.

Emily drops her eyes and dips her head and calls Thomas cheeky in a way that makes me a little sad inside because it feels like no one ever told her that before.

Anyway, Thomas soon finds out that some people do care about things, and those people are Panda and what she cares about is dancing.

No words. You don’t need them.

After class – Though: shortest class ever, right? Didn’t the bell just ring like 90 seconds ago for them to go to class? – homesick Thomas is homesick. He plays some instruments and Panda finds him when she comes back to get her tail.

Panda takes Thomas to visit her crazy aunt who, I’m pretty sure, lives in the house Elizabeth Bennet and every other Austen heroine grew up in. It’s like a miniature Chatsworth House, is what it is (Derby shout-out!), and all those saturated, rolling hills are just perfect for a turn about the garden after a nice brew and some biscuits.

Unless, of course, your tea is made from marijuana. In which case: Cheetos, like I warned you. And a quick kip.

Panda’s aunt had a Jamaican gardener who grew her a whole garden full of “tea plants,” and Thomas gets all entrepreneur up in the greenhouse, like, “I can sell this tea in tiny bags for a spectacular profit.” He and Panda take the “tea plants” back to “his place” and he explains about how it’s not really tea at all, and then they make out. Well, Panda kisses him and says, “So, that’s kissing.” And then he kisses her back and goes, “No, this is kissing.” Which is kind of Bridget Jones-y (“Nice guys don’t kiss like that.” “Oh yes, they f-cking do.”) But it’s cute. They’re cute together.

Afterward, Panda and Thomas interrupt an awkward Stonem family dinner to get some advice from Effy.

Panda: Guess what? We’ve been snogging!

Effy: Never.

Panda: Yeah! And we need some advice.

Effy: Oh?

Panda: [loud whisper] Yeah, we got a shitload of weed!

Effy: Let’s take this upstairs, shall we?

Oh, Lisa Backwell, so underused.

Effy has rounded up the Three Musketeers and the Two Twins for your basic drug dealing night on Bristol. There’s some inane chit-chat – no one’s talking about tea, I’ll tell you that – when Naomi gay!walks up and waves at everyone.

Katie: Oh, Christ. Not again. Who phoned her?

Emily: Please, Katie – don’t.

Naomi: Hi, sorry; couldn’t find a bus. Someone needed a hand?

Katie: Yeah, you like giving hand; don’t you, Naomi?

Naomi: See ya.

And hang on, kids, ’cause here we go!

Last week we talked about propaganda. And we said Cook is shouting a version of his story at top volume, and Naomi is shouting a version of her story at top volume, but what we didn’t talk about is that no one is as dialed into the propaganda machine as Katie Fitch.

I mean, it’s like she studied the art of it with Herman and Chomsky. Appealing to fear? (You’re not as good as me.) Check. Appealing to prejudice? (Gays proselytize their queerness.) Check. Black-and-white fallacy? (You’re either with me or you’re a minger.) Check. Cognitive Dissonance? (My boyfriend plays for the Bristol Rovers.) Check. Demonize the enemy? (“Great, it’s the lesbian, come to gay us up.”) Check. Ad hominem? (“Lezzer bitch.”) Check. Ad nauseam? (“It’s cool, isn’t it?”) Check. Glittering generalities, scape-goating, oversimplification, obfuscation, stereotyping? Check, check, check, check, check and I’ve hired a plane to scatter-bomb these photos of my breasts over Roundview’s campus because when you’ve got tits like mine, you’ve got to flash them a little bit, haven’t you?

And what makes Katie singularly astounding is that she’s not only mass-producing her own propaganda, she’s creating Emily’s as well, because – and this is the key to the haunted hallway that protects the door of the land-mined room that houses the the wardrobe that is secured by magic to conceal the Narnia that is the heart of Katie F-cking Fitch – her very definition is contingent upon the root word of Emily. Katie’s thematic vowels are attached to the stem of Emily’s consistency – and Emily knows it.

Now, again, Emily is not a coward. On the face of the thing, without the benefit of the generational finale, she is the most courageous of them all. So, she lets Katie write her propaganda because: a) She hasn’t finished defining herself (don’t start a war if you don’t know what you’re fighting for). And b) It’s not hurting anyone else – until now.

Emily’s personal definition, her identity, still isn’t fully-formed in her own mind, and I love the writers for making it more than a label. I love the writers for the thing she says right before she sleeps with JJ (“I’m a lot of things, JJ.”) – which, in addition to being true, is also monumentally courageous – because labels are the walls of our clubhouses.

Not just “gay” or “lesbian” or whatever sexuality thing we’re talking about, but also nationality and race and occupation and socioeconomic status and gender and brand-names and culture and education. And while those are all valid pieces of our puzzles, I think Walt Whitman was onto something in “Song of Myself” [Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)]. We turn labels into hiding places, which is weak and foolish even if it’s understandable, but Emily never does that. It’s one of the reasons it takes her so long to find her voice.

So Katie is writing Emily’s propaganda and Emily is not protesting, and then two things happen that trigger an unstoppable motion: 1) Katie’s Emily-verse reaches across their twin bond and wounds Naomi. And 2) When Naomi walks away, it really does look like she’s done.

And here comes the story of Emily Fitch, as told by Emily Fitch, for maybe the first time ever:

Emily: Oh, for f-ck’s sake! She didn’t kiss me, OK?

Katie: Yes, she did; she practically jumped –

Emily: I kissed her. I was drunk and someone gave me MDMA and … I felt like f-cking kissing someone. Satisfied?

OK, so that’s what’s happening with Emily and Naomi and Katie. Their stories just got infinitely messier and more tangled in a forever kind of way. But now I am going to make the case that Effy Stonem is a deity. Ready?

God’s three distinguishing attributes are omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence. That is, God is all-knowing, always-present, and all-powerful.

Remember how I said Effy just knew in the first episode that Naomi wasn’t the one who had kissed Emily? Remember how she just focused right past Katie’s mad chatter and zoomed in on Emily’s face, like: You kissed her; you resent your sister; you’re actually in love with Naomi. And so now Emily confesses the truth, and the knowing way Effy smiles, it’s like she’s almost proud of Emily. And the way Effy looks over her shoulder because she knows Naomi is coming back? I present to you: omniscience. (Hold that thought; we’ll be back in a second.)

Cook is more than OK with the idea that Naomi and Emily kissed and because he is nothing if not consistent, he wants them to kiss for him right now. But Effy insists they get on with the party, and Thomas kind of agrees because his dosh-for-stolen-weed plan is the only thing standing between him and homelessness tomorrow after Desperate Housewives.

The party Cook promised is underground, and did you know it is lit up like Christmas underneath the streets of Bristol?! They crawl down to start selling their stash, but there’s a small problem: the rave is being either crashed or thrown by Mackenzie Crook, who, in addition to being a mobster and a litterer and and a real estate mogul and a pirate and Horcrux-vessel and a socially-deficient co-worker, is also a drug lord. He spots Thomas and his band of merry slingers and decides to get mobstery some more.

Emily happens upon Naomi, who is muttering to herself in the corner like Gollum in the cave under Misty Mountain (“We wants it, we needs it. Must have the Precious. No! It will cheat you, hurt you, lie. She is our friend! You don’t have any friends; nobody likes you! She will look after us now, she will never hurt us! No! Leave now and never come back! Leave now and never come back!”).

Emily says she’s sold three bags for a tenner each, which seems really cheap, and Naomi turns away from the wall and says, “I don’t even know why I’m f-cking doing this.”

Parenthetically, from the future – Naomi, you are staring down a moral quandary about selling weed to help keep a guy off the streets, but you have exactly zero issue with pushing powder to buy your girlfriend a pair of safety goggles? I don’t even …

[Rophy says: If it’s any consolation, Emily looks a lot cuter in those goggles than Thomas does in his apartment.]

And you know what else, Naomi – You’re f-cking doing it because Emily phoned and invited you, and she is the water that froze inside your rock, and you’re going to break yourself against her again and again for the rest of your life. Here’s a crash-course; Emily likes Walt Whitman:

I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,

The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the

distillation, it is odorless,

It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,

I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,

I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

No, seriously, Naoms; I’ve seen episode six. It’s happening.

Emily thanks Naomi for keeping quiet about the kissing thing. Naomi says she doesn’t care what Katie thinks. Emily says she does care, so thanks anyway – and then, look who wanders into the frame.

Why, it’s the ubiquitous Effy Stonem. You might even say she’s omnipresent.

Emily takes a deep, steadying breath and just sends the truth flying into the night: “I didn’t take MDMA that night. I just … wanted to kiss you. I want to kiss you now.”

Effy, the Original Naomily Shipper, smiles that smile – you know the one – while Naomi freaks right the f-ck out: “You’re gay?!”

Emily says no, twice, and then apologizes, which is her total modus operandi with Katie on the regular, and Naomi says she’s sorry too and then hobbles away, muttering some more to herself. (“We told her to go away and away she goes, Precious! Gone, gone, gone! Naomikins is free!”)

But sorry for what, exactly? Sorry you’ve gotta go? Sorry your hair’s still not quite right? Sorry Emily is legitimately gay because your life just got about one gazillion times more terrifying?

Thomas comes bounding up like when your dog is just super pleased with herself for retrieving a tennis ball, and asks Emily which one she is. She answers “gay” and then changes it to “Emily.” And I think that’s the very first time she verbalizes any identity for herself outside the confines of her twin-ness.

To answer your earlier question, Emily Fitch: yes, I am satisfied. Deeply, deeply satisfied.

I’m going to need a moment.

What happens next is that Thomas raps in French and everyone cheers and loves him, and Emily sneaks some peeks at Naomi, and then they all go out into the fresh morning air, and Thomas is rich!

Thomas prayed for money and he got money. Thomas prayed for friends and he got friends. And you know who made that happen, with one phone call? Effy Stonem. Omnipotent.

Thomas straps on his trainers and runs like a dog.

Nope. F-cking Mackenzie Crook kidnaps them all and challenges Thomo to a pepper eating contest, which, much like the doughnut camera work, is just so very Skins: surreal, insane, oddly effective. Thomas wins, of course. And now he has friends forever.

What will he do with them? Engage in debauchery: Donuts! Weed! Vodka! Rum! Dancing! Breasts! It’s a roaring good time – until his mom shows up and tells him to pack his rucksack; he’s on the first plane back to Congo!

And can I tell you something? For all my upstanding adoration for JJ, and complete acceptance of the fact that he’s going to sleep with Emily, my first reaction when I saw him twirling her around in Thomas’ hallway was, “Get your hands off of her!”

I blame Rophy for this. (And I don’t look forward to recapping JJ’s episode, actually, because I love him, and the last time I wrote about him, someone called me “Hitler.” Hitler!)

So Thomas came to Britain. And then he left. And Panda is publicly naked and publicly heartbroken and probably stoned out of her head. You know what will help? A nice cup of tea.

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