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“Skins” recap (4.08) Naomily, A History

Creedence Clearwater called. He called Thomas Tomone and he said, “There’s an unhinged bat-murderer on the loose, and there’s no rhyme or reason to his shenanigans, no physical improbability to hold him down. You better run, Thomo. You better run through the jungle.”

So Thomo takes off out his front door and he runs and runs, as fast as his legs will carry him – down the street, through the city; he turns left at the park and skips to the track and starts running in circles (not the brightest idea when you’re trying to evade homicide, I don’t think), and then he stops sprinting and picks up a rope and starts … jumping it.

False alarm, everyone! False alarm! Thomas is just out for some exercise!

Also up for some exercise this morning is Cook, who is just howling away and shagging someone whose face we – and he – can’t see.

In the bedroom next door, Emily wakes up in that particular way one does when one doesn’t remember going to bed the night before, with that genetically-encoded System Recovery that supersedes all other programs, like: awake? Well, that’s good. Have feeling in fingers, toes and lips? Also good. In a bed and not using the toilet as a pillow? Even better. Then there’s the moment of inescapable truth where you work up the nerve to move your head and you either vomit, or your brain erupts like a supernova, or … nothing. And if nothing, then you’re almost always in the clear – though it’s not a bad idea to check your bank balance to see if you dropped 80 quid on FarmVille cash in the middle of the night.

Or, you know, bedded a Giant not-Naomi.

Did you gasp? Did you say, “Emily Fitch!” right out loud to the TV, because I did.

Wait, though – I meant to say this last week but I was still having nightmares about baseball bats and Demon Headmasters. I’ve gotten a fair bit of hate mail about Mandy, about who am I to judge another person’s body type and anyway don’t I know that Kathryn Prescott is hobbit-sized and so anyone would appear enormous standing next to her?

Just to clarify: I was not mocking Mandy – or the actress who plays her – for being a giant. I was mocking her because she is not Naomi. Also, I am five feet, ten inches tall and it’s the very best thing about me, and if Emily is a hobbit and Mandy is a giant, then I am a troll. (“Anyone can speak Troll. All you have to do is point and grunt.” – Fred Weasley, RIP w/Freddie McClair)

Emily gets out of bed and surveys her clothing situation. Verdict: scantily clad, but not totally starkers. She stares at Mandy for a minute and then brings her hand up to her face and … sniffs her fingers. Hilarious. That is hilarious.

Naomi calls out that she’s back from the grocers and Emily literally shouts back, “No!” Like, “No, you’re not!” and starts swearing and pacing around in a circle, like she’s maybe looking for a trap door she never noticed before. She snaps to attention as Naomi comes bounding in the room telling Emily that she’s been out to get supplies for breakfast, and also Heat. She squeals it: “I got Heat!” which is the funniest thing because you Brits have the most excellent relationship with your gossip rags.

I mean, Americans like gossip rags, of course, but it’s all very pedestrian: “Two drunk celebs with no redeeming value whatsoever kissed in front of whatever L.A. nighclub and also probably some naughty bits got flashed.”

But in Britain, publishing gossip is an art. One Heat headline is better than a hundred full-on US Weeklys. I will never forget the first time someone handed me a copy, outside of Bayswater Tube station, right as I was about to hop on the train. I think I made the full loop on the Circle Line twice before I realized what I was doing. British gossip mags and papers are not just hook-ups and break-ups; they’re celebrities, royalty, fashion, sex, celebrities and royalty having fashionable sex, incomprehensible political jargon, and a laundry list of ways every other nation in the EU is inferior to Britain. They’re magic, is what they are.

So obviously Naomi is excited about Heat, but then she presents the breakfast menu thus: “I can fry you, poach you, scramble you; do you anyway you like.” Which makes me think Heat is actually what she has planned for dessert after a full English breakfast – if you know what I mean, and I think you do – but oh, that’s right: Troll in the dungeon!

Emily’s vodka-addled mind is still trying to piece the whole thing together when Mandy lets out a little snore and starts mumbling in her sleep about “Fee-fi-fo-fum.” Naomi gives Emily a sympathetic look and goes, “Has she been threatening to grind your bones to bread all night?”

Emily is finally just like, “What?”

So Naomi spells it out that Emily and Mandy got trashed at some party, so Naomi slept on the couch with Panda. Naomi figures it’s her bedroom, so she walks over and lifts the covers to find that Mandy is just absolutely naked. She’s shocked, but masks the wobble by noting that Mandy’s “tits are nice – for a straight girl,” and then says again how it’s a good thing that Mandy is, in fact, straight; otherwise, Emily might have “gotten, you know, tempted.”

There are two ways to say “You might have gotten tempted.” The first is a joke you and your girlfriend are both in on, like: “I’ve made you a five-course dinner, or would you rather just have a sh-t sandwich?” And the other is a question you’re too scared to ask – and to her credit Emily rightly interprets Naomi’s comment as the second thing. She assures Naomi (and herself) that she was wrecked by the time they got into bed. Naomi agrees and feels better, but is still slightly distressed because Emily didn’t answer secret question number three: Do you want to sleep with anyone besides me?

Answer: No. And I’m not even sure Emily knew it for sure until she woke up in bed beside Mandy.

Remember at Bristol’s worst barbecue when Naomi asked Emily if she wanted to shag that random girl and Emily said, “Maybe I do – so what?”

We correctly interpreted that the biggest lie to ever caress Emily’s lips, but I’m not sure even Emily understood how incredibly untrue it was at the time. She was thinking about level playing fields and reciprocal turmoil and just … blood everywhere. So in a few minutes when Mandy asks Emily, “What have we been doing?” she misses the point entirely. The real question is, “What purpose have I been serving?” And the answer is: tourniquet.

Naomi kisses a still-bemused Emily on the forehead and tells her to take a shower.

Also in need of a shower – perhaps of the silkwood variety – is Cook, whose recent conquest is an Effy doppelganger with an insane case of IBS.

When she emerges from the toilet, Cook introduces her.

Cook: Naomi, Arse-ia.

Naomi: Pardon?

Arse-ia: Arse-ia.

Naomi: I didn’t – I didn’t quite –

Arse-ia: Arse-ia.

Naomi: Arse-ia?

Cook: Arse-ia. All right?

Naomi: Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. Arse-ia. Arse-ia. It’s pretty. Arse-ia.

Arse-ia: Cheers.

I know a lot of people were upset that Naomi didn’t get her own episode in this condensed season, but this “Everyone” episode is all Lily Loveless. It’s like a showcase of supernatural ability, a love letter wrapped in a thank you card stuffed in an envelope and mailed to AfterEllen.com, re: For Your Consideration – Top 50 Lesbian Characters (For All Eternity) and Hot 100 (To Infinity).

Anyway, Arse-ia lost her thong in the bus station.

Which is better, I suppose, than losing your mind in the middle of rush-hour traffic – again.

Effy is in her lemon scrubs, in the mental hospital, where Katie has spent the night. They discuss how Freddie is still missing, but Effy is comforted because she can hear Freds in her head. They don’t dwell on how that makes her even crazier than she was yesterday, though, because out the window they see Panda trying to make her way across the field. A nurse (mistakenly) identifies her as a mental patient and pushes her down on an orange ball, instructing her to get in sync with the other bouncers, but Panda just hops away and climbs in Effy’s window.

Panda has an assortment of musical instruments in her bag – which neither Katie nor Effy question, because of course she does – and she tells Effy that she wrote her a song.

And how could it not?

Some days are disasters,

that you wish could just end

Other days are b–tards,

just like a bad boyfriend

But it makes me feel much worse than this

to see your face masked with a frown

I’m not telling you to smile, but don’t be down.

Don’t be down, my friend

Don’t do your wrist any harm

You don’t belong on a funny farm

And I’d rather see you in a party dress

than in a hospital gown

I’m not telling you to smile

but don’t be down.

Your assumption that I ripped this song to my iPod as an MP3 and have added it to my running mix is correct.

After a while, the party breaks up and good ol’ Dr. F-ckster comes ’round to tell Effy’s he’s leaving his job at the hospital to become a full-time serial killer. She tells him she’ll never forget him, and he says, “No, you won’t, Elizabeth.” And tick-tock-tock-tock-blah-blah-blah.

Let’s go ahead and deal with the last scene of the episode because I’m officially done with this idiot.

So, tomorrow night, Cook is going to take a whiz in the bushes outside Freddie’s shed because the dude will literally pee anywhere. And F-ckster is going to come skulking through the alley for whatever dumb reason. He wants to get a jump-start Generation 3 by axe-murdering Karen, probably. He’ll see Cook and scurry away, and Cook will follow him, break into his basement and find Freddie’s bloody clothes, which have conveniently been labeled “Freddie’s bloody clothes.”

F-ckster will then pull out his trusty baseball bat – don’t you guys play cricket? – and Cook is going to go, “Oh, you think you’re unhinged? Brother, have you ever watched this show? I’m unhinged. And this is the part where I end you.”

And I think that pretty much sums it up. Nice acting by Jack the Lad, as always.

Back at The Shire, Emily is wrapped in a towel, looking for something to wear, when Mandy – who has been pretending to doze for a creepy amount of time – throws back the covers and says she thought Emily and Naomi weren’t sleeping together anymore. Emily asks her what other choice a hobbit has, when convicts and hobos and hulking woodland creatures keep moving in every five seconds – which is funny, and it also means that Naomi is turning into her mother. (Out in the kitchen, someone is discussing heteronormative patriarchy and the threatening nature of the banana.)

Mandy gets pretty awesome pretty fast. She asks Emily what they’ve been doing, which we’ve already discussed, and Emily seeks more reassurance that they didn’t sleep together: “Mandy, we haven’t done anything, so I don’t know why … I mean, we didn’t do anything last night – did we?”

Mandy says no, but that Emily wanted to. Emily refuses to believe that, so Mandy submits the following: 1) “I don’t want to be f–ked around, Emily.” 2) “Just because she won’t take you to Goa.” 3) “I’d take you.” 4) “We’d go dancing, sleep in a hut. 5) “I’d make love to you on the beach.” 6) “Isn’t that what you want?”

And I mean, it’s only five, maybe six sentences, depending on how you punctuate it, but that’s a lot of stuff, and mostly it’s Mandy asking the question Emily hasn’t been able to bring herself to examine: “Do you want to stay here, clutching a prism you don’t understand, a spectrum that is destroying you; or do you want to take a chance that I might know something about color too?”

The gang + Karen (and little Albert, because baby actors cost less, I guess, and it’s an inexpensive way to let us know JJ and Lara are still together) have gathered at Naomi’s, where it’s half-eleven and she wants to start mixing drinks. The only person who’s interested in getting trolleyed so early is Arse-ia, and Noami says right out loud that if Effy can have a drink, they can all have a drink.

Cook’s like, “What did you just call – oh, wow. Arse-ia, you’ve got to go.”

Arse-ia says she thought they were going to get piercings, but Cook shoves her out the door and tells her he’ll have to take a rain check. Karen follows him outside, and Emily watches them go. She stares out the window for long time, trying to memorize the colors.

Upstairs, Thomas pretends to help Katie learn French so Panda will see that he is a good guy, and take him back. Panda listens at the door and is sad because she’s a secret genius, and she knows Thomas is offering to shag Katie eleven ways ’till Sunday. Katie doesn’t know that, but she does know that there’s a bed and a dude, so she kisses him. Then, awesomely, she’s like, “I didn’t … I don’t … what the f–k is the matter with me?”

Thomas goes, “Sorry. I can’t stop loving Panda, and also I’ve got some running to do, because even though I didn’t sit any exams and was, in fact, expelled from school, there is an Ivy League university in the United States that rich kids spend twelve years in private schools preparing to attend, and they’re dying to offer an inexperienced athlete a spot on their track team.”

Back downstairs, Naomi wants to dance. Mostly, she just doesn’t want to think. Mandy tries to leave, but Naomi stops her and begs her to stay. Naomi cues up Wham!, shouts “Yay!”, closes her eyes and the rhythm gets her. Controlled abandon: it’s her mask, her modus operandi.

I guess I must have loved you

Because I said you were the perfect girl for me

Mandy moves closer, locking her hips with Naomi’s. She turns back to look at Emily over her shoulder. This isn’t the first time she’s pressed her body against another girl. She wants Emily to know it.

And now we’re six months older

And everything you want and everything you see

is out of reach, not good enough.

I don’t know what the hell you want from me.

Naomi says Mandy dances pretty good, for a straight girl. She keeps saying it out loud, willing it to be true. Naomi opens her eyes, hedges her bets: “We have problems, me and Emsy,” she shouts. “‘Cause I was … bad. Isn’t that right, Ems?”

Emily’s face contorts in anger and in pain. “See? I’m forgiven!” Naomi shouts. “It’s just been heaven these last months. F–king heaven!”

Somebody tell me why I work so hard for you?

Mandy looks at Emily one more time, and it’s enough. She storms out of the room.

Mandy turns to Naomi. She says her name, to make sure she has her attention, then reaches out to caress her breast. This is not the first time she’s touched a girl. It’s time for both of them to know.

“If you don’t want her,” Mandy says, leaning in to kiss Naomi, “I do.”

Naomi slaps Mandy so hard that she stumbles backward. She’s as sober as she’s ever been; her face flashes through every stage of grief.

The next morning, Emily wakes up and rolls over to see Naomi propped on an elbow, gazing at her. Emily says, “I love you,” and it can’t be anything but true because in sleepyhead veritas. Everyone tells the truth when they’re shaking off their dreams like a puppy coming in out of the rain. Naomi says “Don’t lie,” but, really, it’s a question. When Emily doesn’t answer, she tells her that her mum’s coming back next week – maybe it’s time for her to go. It’s the only shard of control Naomi sees, and she grabs it.

The police arrive, looking for Cook. One of them shoves Naomi against the wall, and she doesn’t even feel it.

Cook and Effy meet up in Freddie’s shed, and he gives her Freds’ Declaration of Love. JJ shows up, too, with Panda, who tells them that she’s going to Harvard to study history. (Rory Gilmore would kill herself if she saw people get into Harvard this easily.)

In the wreckage of her living room, Naomi’s phone rings. It’s her mum. “No, nothing’s going on,” Naomi tells her. “Just the usual stuff.”

(Just the usual stuff: The cops blew up the place looking for an escaped convict whose latest lover turned him in because he lost her thong at the bus station, and he barely made it out the window with our drugs before the door came crashing in.)

Then this: “I accepted a place at Goldsmith, but – yeah, I know how proud you are of me, Mum. I love you too.”

That interrupted “but” is the most important preceding clause of Naomi’s life: “But Emily wants to travel to Goa.”

You will remember that Emily and Naomi were originally going to Mexico, but I guess they had to make other plans when their ponchos caught fire during that tequila-fueled taco night.

The traveling thing has been the dissonance between the notes of the Naomily Symphony all season, but until just this moment, we’ve really only scratched the surface of why.

For Emily, it’s about holding hands and stepping together into the next phase of life. And so she understands Naomi’s reluctance to go as a reluctance to commit. And when you add that to the Sophia thing, all Emily sees is that she’s the one who keeps fighting for their relationship. We always knew what the battle was costing Emily; we watched her struggle against her mum, her twin sister, even Naomi – and, at times, her own better judgment.

And now we know that being with Emily cost Naomi everything.

Naomi only ever had herself, and the knowledge that no matter how hard she tried, she could not stop loving Emily Fitch. Emily’s presence on the edge of Naomi’s life nearly destroyed her – and she knew letting her in all the way, losing herself in Emily, was the most dangerous, reckless decision she could ever make. But she did it anyway; she couldn’t help herself.

And then Emily wanted to go traveling, which meant that – if only for a while – Naomi had to put her ambition on hold. The first thing we ever knew about her is that she hates injustice. She aced her A-levels. She’s going somewhere. She’s going to change things. She already lost herself in Emily; the idea of losing her dreams in Emily was too terrifying to even contemplate.

Back at Freddie’s shed, there’s some choreography going on to Kylie Minogue‘s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.” The operative lyrics being: There’s a dark secret in me/don’t leave me locked in your heart. And they are, of course, directed right at Naomi.

Everyone has a dragon. Some people have more than one. I have three. They sleep some, but not always, and when they’re awake, the flames and the clawing will drive you to the end of you: your blistering fears, your furious insecurities – that you’re worthless (Cook); that you’ll never belong (Thomas); that you’re not enough (Katie); that you can’t survive alone (Effy); that you’ll never be known (Panda). Mostly we pretend our dragons don’t exist. Sometimes we try to run. Some people, brave people, find the courage to enter their caves and look their dragon in the eye, to face the truth of their desperate desires. But even they gird themselves with impenetrable armor.

And then there is Naomi.

She said one thing so loud and so long that she convinced everyone around her it was true, except the person she wanted to believe it most. Naomi pretended, back then, that Emily was saying, “I want you, I want you,” but what she was saying was, “I see you.” The wanting: yes, of course – but that was the effect. Naomi didn’t lack the desire; she lacked the courage.

And now we know why.

I always thought Emily was the bravest person on Skins because she faced her dragon, saw everything she had to lose, and said out loud anyway, “I’m gay.”

This scene is one of my favorite moments ever on TV because, yeah, it’s viscerally gutting, her lying there covered in nothing but the last shirt Emily ever wore to sleep beside her, but the real thing is: Naomi just got naked with her dragon.

No one does that. No one does that.

If it breaks her, she’ll be broken forever. If it strikes her, her wounds will never heal. But she takes off her clothes, enters its cave; she looks into its eyes – past Mandy in her bed with Emily, past that girl Sophia and that day on the train; she reaches out to touch Emily’s hair, pulls her hand away; she abandons her on a blanket by the lake; “Go on: disappoint me,” she says; she begs Emily to leave her alone; “Why does your sister think I’m gay?” she asks; she reaches for Emily’s hand through the cat flap; slams her up against the lockers – and she remembers the truth, that day she was twelve. She surrenders to it. She picks up her sword.

And Naomi Campbell slays her f-cking dragon.

Outside Freddie’s shed, Thomas, Katie and Emily stop to remember. Thomas has never been here before; he’s finally being accepted just as he’s about to leave. Katie forced her way inside a long time ago, but she knew it was not where she belonged. And Emily never even cared to try, because where she fit was more like water in the parched cracks of Naomi’s soul.

Emily doesn’t know that Naomi’s thirst was the catalyst for a dragon’s destruction, but we have one more thing to talk about before she finds out.

The greatest gift a storyteller can give you – and you’ll never convince me there is a greater gift than story – is to tell you something real. My favorite book starts like this: The world is dark, and light is precious. Come closer, dear reader. You must trust me. I am telling you a story. Which is the honest-to-God most seductive thing anyone could ever whisper into my ear.

A lot of people – don’t wince, own it – gave the Skins writing team so much crap this series because of the palpable angst between Naomi and Emily. And I get that, I really do. Because your heart took up the rhythm of their hearts, and when theirs broke, yours broke too.

So, some people are like: You’ve only got eight episodes; I want to see Naomi and Emily happy.

But I’m like: You’ve only got eight episodes; tell me something true. (“Go on, JJ; don’t be pathetic. Tell me something true.”)

Life is messy, yeah? All these unrelated events – inane, monotonous, trivial – threaded together by time. When you die, someone ties the thread together, maybe even in a bow, but there’s still no shape to it. And without shape, there is no meaning. Most lives are shapeless, and that’s OK, because you know what else is shapeless? The night sky – or it would be if someone hadn’t drawn Orion and Pegasus and Cassiopeia onto heaven’s canvas.

Constellations are just another story: form to the madness, order to the chaos.

Fiction resonates because it does the same thing – only instead of drawing pictures of kings out of unrelated points of light, it draws pictures of us out of unrelated points of life.

Authentic stories, real stories get inside us in a way nothing else can.

So tell me about Naomi and Emily. Tell me how they fell in love, absolutely – tell me a hundred times! But tell me about the consequences. Tell me about the paralyzing fear of being seen. Tell me about getting wrecked by getting known. Tell me about an afternoon on a scooter, full on Garibaldi, under an impossibly blue sky. Tell me about running and tripping and falling and failing, and about slicing yourself open with the broken pieces of the only thing you ever loved. Tell me about the blood. And don’t mop it up. And don’t ignore it. And don’t insult me with a bandage. Let it bleed and let it heal and let me run my fingers over the scar because that’s how I know you are telling me the truth.

Now introduce me to another show – seriously, I’m begging you – that has done that with its lesbian and bisexual characters. I can name two. In the history of TV, I can name two – and neither of them were The L Word.

I think the legacy of Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain is what they did with Naomi and Emily. And a triumph beyond measure is what Lily Loveless and Kathryn Prescott infused into their characters.

The world is dark, and light is precious. And they told us a real and resounding love story.

Which, perfectly enough, ends with a beginning.

Inside Fred’s shed, the party has fizzled into a card game. Katie gets fabulously bitchy about why did she get dressed up for this crap, and Cook says something in that Bristol accent [update! I’ve been set straight. Cook’s got a Derby(ish) accent] I still cannot understand, but will miss more than I can say.

JJ invites them to join the game – the ante is something shocking.

You can hear the rain when Naomi opens the door. She says she’ll go first, and Emily turns to face her; her posture an unmistakable challenge. The space between them is the story between them, something Emily started telling long ago: “Once upon a time…

… We danced at a pajama party, and your eyes said more than all words I had read in my whole life. I kissed you there, once, twice. I kissed you again until the taste of you – mint and chocolate and pinot and you – drove me to delirium. And I knew and you knew I was the only person to ever get close enough to cherish it … We made a picnic of vodka … We made love by the lake …”

Naomi knows the story, she knows it by heart. And it’s true. It will never stop being true. But she slayed a dragon; she must retell it. And for a moment, she is incandescent.

Naomi: I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you; I think I was 12. It took me … three years to pluck up the courage to speak to you. I was so scared of the way I felt; you know, loving a girl, that I became a sarcastic bitch just to make it feel normal. I screwed guys to make it go away, but it didn’t work. When we got together it scared the sh-t out of me because you were the one person who could ruin my life.

Naomi: I pushed you away. I made you think things were your fault, but really I was just terrified of pain. I screwed that girl Sophia to kind of spite you for having that hold on me. And I’m a total f–king coward because I got these … these tickets for us for Goa three months ago.

But I couldn’t stand … I didn’t want to be a slave to the way I feel about you. Can you understand? You were trying to punish me back, and it’s horrible. It’s so horrible because, really, I would die for you. I love you. I love you so much it is killing me.

Later tonight, when Emily inventories Naomi’s freckles and scars, she’ll notice things she never saw before: gashes she missed, wounds she inflicted, remnants of a dragon that have miraculously healed. She’s free again to caress Naomi’s baby photos, free again to caress Naomi. She’ll add laughter to their chalkboard, and love biscuits to their cupboard. But for now she closes the distance and kisses her; kisses her with all the tenderness and hope and mercy and desire that decorum will allow in a shed full of brigands.

The only story more powerful and ridiculous and wonderful than the story of love is the story of redemption.

They break their kiss and embrace, and maybe it’s the moment, the scent of Emily’s hair. Or maybe it’s the dragon. As Naomi holds her close, she remembers how losing control feels like falling – but this doesn’t feel like that at all. Falling with Emily Fitch feels exactly like dancing.

Naomi reaches for Emily’s hand, steadies the prism. It burns. And it burns. They are alive like fire.

And this is their story.

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

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