Archive

“Skins” Retro Recap (3.07): “JJ”

Hey, you. Oh, you. You hung in there for these series three recaps even though this one is wildly late, and for that I offer you my three-fold explanation for its tardiness: 1) I write these recaps in the middle of the night, mostly, because I have a billion other deadlines to meet, and new shows and news stories take precedence, and also sometimes so does sleep. 2) I was finishing writing a book about American foreign policy in the ’90s, and the energy leap from Rwanda and Bosnia to James Jimmy Cook is as hard on the body as time travel. 3) The last time I wrote about JJ, I got the hate-iest hate-mail to ever be hated, and I’ve been reluctant to stick my face in the way of a moving fist again.

See, because what I did was say how much I like JJ and how it makes perfect sense to me that Emily shags him in this episode. The funniest hate mail I got wondered if I sleep naked in a pile of cash or what, since I am clearly on AfterEllen and E4’s payroll, which: Tell that to the duct tape holding my watch together, for starters. And the most infuriating hate mail I got – and I got a dozen of these babies – told me to stop making excuses for the Skins writers, because clearly the only reason Emily shags JJ is because “some straight guy” yanked off his straightness all over the script.

And I gotta tell you: There are few things in the world that piss me off like that kind of myopic, ill-informed, arcane clubhouse-think. If that’s your thing, that whole “boys can’t make good stories about lesbians” thing, grab a pen and paper ’cause I’ve got some names for you. Ready? Bryan Elsley, Jamie Brittain, Jack Thorne, Ed Hime, Malcom Campbell. Creators, writers and Keepers of Keys and Hearts in the Land of Naomily. Dudes, the lot of them. Now stick that piece of paper in your denim ideas bag and jot down this: Joss Whedon, Terry Moore, Greg Rucka, J.H. Williams III, Michael Cunningham, Ol Parker. Again: dudes. And here’s what you’re looking for: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Strangers in Paradise, Batwoman in Detective Comics, The Hours, Imagine Me & You.

Now, after you’ve watched and read all that glorious content, pop in your L Word season three DVD – lesbians: written by lesbians, for lesbians – and come back here and tell me only gay women should be allowed to write queer characters.

I’m not having a knee-jerk reaction to the criticism, it’s just that I wasn’t trained to write about TV. I studied history at university, and I’ve spent years and years of my life following the thread of the Them Vs. Us mentality, and it never ends well. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. No matter how or why you apply it. And it’s ultimately ironic that a person would use that kind of argument on this particular episode when one of Emily Fitch’s finest moments is when she refuses to let JJ – someone who needs labels to unravel the mystery of causation – corner her with a single definition.

And I’m also not being flippant. I’ve had months to think about this, to come at it from every possible angle. I mean, I know we’re not computers; we’re Human Beans. Our emotional output is very rarely based on raw data or hard facts. We all have perception filters determined by our past experiences and stereotypes and levels of education and economic classes and ethnicity and religious upbringings and a whole host of other things. And so if you’re watching Skins series three in real-time and you see Emily hop into bed with JJ so soon after her night at the lake with Naomi, your mind jumps to Tina Kennard from TLW and Lindsay from Queer as Folk, and every American show that promised a gay character, and then turned her into Sweeps exploitation. And you’re like, “No, godda–it! Not Emily Fitch! She’s too special!”

I get that. Oh, how I get that. But we’re past that now; we’re on the other side. You’ve seen the truth and beauty of Naomi and Emily’s whole story. So, why are we still saying “straight guys blah blah whatever”? Is it because we’re a minority, the lesbian community? Yeah? Well, here’s a minority group for you: People on the Autism spectrum. Take off your Gay Goggles for a second and imagine you’ve got Asperger’s. Imagine you want a life like a normal person, whatever that means, and watch JJ through those glasses. (And I don’t just mean do that with JJ. Do that always. Do that with everything.)

One of the great things about Skins is that it treats every character the same. And why should it not? Life punches us all in the nuts sometimes, we connect the dots from fuck up to fuck up, we live. If you want something easy, watch 90210. If you want something real, hang on – because JJ is about to make some magic.

Claude Debussy is the Monet of the music world because they both sort of capture the epic scope of Impressionism with their sensual dissonance and the quick way they take their crayons outside the lines. And “Claire De Lune,” which bookends JJ’s episode, is Debussy’s “Water Lilies.” It’s the most famous movement of “Suite Bergamasque,” and it actually takes its name from Paul Verlaine’s poem Promenade sentimentale, which goes, in part, a little something like this:

Me, I wandered alone, taking my wound with me

Along the lake, among the willows

Where the vague mist conjured up

A great milky ghost, and despairing,

And tearfully crying with the voice of the teals

That called one another while beating their wings

Among the willows where I wandered alone,

Taking my wound with me…

Verlaine, meet JJ.

JJ has smashed the shit out of his room. It looks like Space Camp threw up all over the place. Overturned robots are moving their little mechanical legs in the air because they’ve been flipped onto their backs, and lab mice are running free like a revolution, and somehow JJ has managed to get jam or something on his face. Maybe its Vegemite. I always feel like destroying something with someone tries to replace my peanut butter toast with Vegemite.

Rophy says: It’s not Vegemite. Vegemite hates JJ.

JJ’s watch beeps. He acknowledges that he’s needed somewhere. But first we get a look at the chart on his wall where he tracks how every lesbian has boned every other lesbian’s girlfriend his relationships and tries to make sense of the world. The key to JJ is that thing right in the middle: He is normal as long as he is connected to Freddie and Cook and they are connected to one another.

On his way out out of his house, he gets accosted by some neighborhood thugs half his age. They chase after him like a pack of wild Dudley Dursleys shouting, “Gay Jay! Gay Jay! Gay Jay!”

JJ’s not gay, but I learned from his wall chart that he is a virgin.

Rin says: You have no idea how happy your usage of ‘pack of wild’ has made us.

Sophy says: I was more excited about the Dudley reference to be honest…

Sadly, there’s no remedy for that where he spends his Saturday mornings – at the model airplane shop. He requests two dozen model war machines and the shop owner wants to know what happened because he just sold JJ the same stuff two weeks ago. JJ says it was the culmination of several rage incidents, and the shop owner knows just the thing: “I have missiles on special offer! The intercontinental kind! These bitches won’t just blow up France; they’ll reach all the way to India!” I don’t know about JJ, but I feel calmer already!

JJ takes his bag of toys to Psycho(logical) Support and things get very British very fast. Like every scene that happens inside this building is executed with such Englishness that it’s impossible to watch without a cup of tea in your hand. One old lady doesn’t know where she lives, and when her friend tells her she lives with a group of ladies now, she starts swearing. Inside, a woman panics because she doesn’t want to stay at Psycho(logical) Support, but it’s totally her job. And when JJ flips the fuck out in a minute and starts bashing chairs and destroying rubbish bins, no one bats an eyelash.

JJ’s explains to his counselor that he’s been getting locked on, that he’s worried because his friends hate each other, and that he’s stopped doing magic because there’s no point to it. Aaaand he may love Effy, just a little bit. The counselor tells him to just not do all that first stuff. He gives JJ some new little pills to take in addition to his old little pills. And then he advises him that the queue for people who love Effy starts three blocks over and wraps around the building twice. “I just sent someone named Katie over no less then ten minutes ago. Shouldn’t be hard to find. Incandescent red hair. Angel costume.”

Rophy says: JJ is such a squib. And you. Trying to sneak in a little Keffy. We adore it.

On his way out, JJ pauses because he hears an unfamiliar sound behind him. Is it the rustle of angel’s wings, he wonders? Has God, in his infinite mercy, opened up heaven to send a celestial creature here to earth? Yes, JJ, he has. Behold the seraphic face of Emily Fitch.

He is surprised but delighted to see her – as all mortal beings are in the presence of the divine – but stops himself from asking why she’s there. She tells him anyway: She was looking for a little help learning to be more honest. (Which is like: Only a kitten is cute enough to ask for help being even cuter, you know?) They bond over the STUN pills their counselors gave them. JJ thinks they must be magic if they can calm one down and help one be more honest. She asks if he needs help calming down, and JJ says out loud the internal dialogue that’s been racing through Naomi’s head since she turned her own personal ICMBs to Target: Emily. “Believe me, I do. I’m getting overstimulated just talking to you.”

He tries to backtrack, but she smiles her ethereal smile and says not to worry, that it’s hard telling people stuff about yourself, but that she’s going to try. Because of course she is. Because she’s got a collection of fannies under her bed that she keeps stuffing back into a box, but she’s made love to Naomi now, which opened up a whole other thing, and she’s never going to be able to tuck that away and hide it.

I want to have sex with girls. Yeah. I like girls. I like sex with girls. I like their rosey lips, their hard nipples, bums, soft thighs. I like tits and fanny, you know? There I said it!

JJ passes out. I kind of felt like passing out the first time I watched this too because when have you ever seen a lesbian character on a network TV show getting to embrace the sexual part of her sexuality? Um, never.

Rophy says: LOL, yeah okay, Hogan. We’ll see who believes you felt lightheaded because of that. Not at all because of Emily screaming, ‘TITS AND FANNY!!!!!!’

Emily and JJ go to the park because today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic. Their picnic of pills. He lays it all out there for her, including his vitamin C which he pops all the time because it’s nice and fizzy. Emily decides to give at a go, but I guess you guys don’t have Pop Rocks in England because if you did Emily would know not to try to wash that thing down with a carbonated beverage. At this summer camp I went to one time, the campers swore a kid’s head exploded because he chased three packs of Pop Rocks with a Sprite.

Luckily that fate does not await Emily Fitch. Freddie, on the other hand – nah, too easy.

JJ swoops in and saves her life, and for his reward he cops a feel. Emily is like, “Dude, you’re copping a feel.” And he’s like, “Yeah, I know.”

She thinks it’s time to bounce, but JJ loses it and starts bashing himself harder than even Rophy has ever done – and that’s saying something! Emily flashes her breasts at him and he shuts it down. Which: Maybe you’re a gold star lesbian, so let me just tell you – guys do not get calmer when you show them your naked breasts. But whatever. He zips it up. She tells him to start asking for the things he wants – which is kind of awesome because you can totally tell this a new thing she’s decided to do in her life too – and he asks to see her breasts again. She says no, and even though it’s not her problem, she agrees to help him on his quest anyway. Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee did the same thing. Hobbits stick together! Ducks never say die!

Rophy says: *slow building chant* Quack…quack…quack…

Emily and JJ go to Freddie’s house where JJ plans to tell him to make up with Cook and stop ruffling his hair. Karen answers the door and the look on her face when she sees Emily, I just – If she’s from heaven and you hate her, Karen, what does that make you? Emily is like, “Do I even know you?” And Karen’s face when she works it out is deliciously sinister. She walks JJ and Emily to Freddie’s door and pulls out a tub of popcorn. JJ knocks; Freddie doesn’t answer. JJ requests an audience with Freddie; Freddie tells him he’s a bit busy. Emily is like, “Fuck’s sake,” and she comes crashing in to find Katie surfing Freddie’s turf.

“Now,” Karen says, “Does everyone know each other?”

Katie’s face behind the covers. I die every time.

This scene is fascinating, relationship dynamic-wise. JJ knows that Freddie is in love with Effy, so he’s like, “Dude, so not right.” Katie knows it too, but she’s like, “Free country, yo.” Emily also knows it, but her disapproval has nothing to do with that. She’s hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Katie’s like, “I’m sorry; maybe my postal application hasn’t reached you yet.” But on a deeper level, I mean, have you ever really thought about what Katie must have been going through when Emily took Naomi down to that lake. They’re sisters; they share everything. Katie knows about Naomi; she so very obviously knows about Naomi. Emily didn’t tell her. So she didn’t tell Emily. When there aren’t any rules anymore, anyone can make the rules.

Katie is still lashing out, telling JJ maybe her “weirdo sister” is up for it. JJ Hagrids that that’s ridiculous because Emily’s gay. “I shouldn’t have told ya that!” Suddenly Katie doesn’t care that she’s naked or in Freddie’s bed or that Karen’s still chomping down on popcorn out in the hallway. The camera closes in on her like the walls of the world and she begs Emily to tell her that’s not true.

In Freds’ shed, JJ begs him to make up with Cook, but Freddie pulls out a guitar and plays him a song:

Now our JJ must decide Who will be the boy he casts aside? Will Freddie be the one who he loves like nookie Or will it be the one who we’ll call … Cookie He must decide, he must decide Even though I made him up, he must decide!

As if JJ’s day wasn’t rough enough, he goes home to find that his mum has fallen asleep studying his Asperger’s file. He wants to be OK for himself. But he wants to be OK for her so badly.

JJ goes to his room and dumps out all his medicine. Cook phones and tells him they’re going out tonight and to keep taking his mad pills. He forgets to hang up so JJ hears him saying that he’s a mental basket, and also he hears him having sex. And I don’t – why did Cook phone JJ during the middle of shagging?

JJ decides to march over to Effy’s and demand that they show him a little respect. On the way, the best thing ever in this life happens. Dudley chases behind him all, “Gay Jay! Gay Jay! Gay Jay!” And JJ whips around and bows up and throws a punch … but it’s a lolly!

That is magic.

Also magic, some would say, is a naked Effy Stonem.

JJ breaks into her house and then into her room, and she’s like, “What the fuck, JJ?” He says he didn’t like what her and Cook were saying about him, and she’s like, “Cook who?” JJ insists he heard them having sex and then he Hagrids all over again. “I shouldn’t have told you that!”

Rophy says: Hagrid isn’t appreciating these comparisons to JJ… seriously, we live in his beard. We should know.

Effy feeds him mango juice to calm him down. It’s very sweet. He asks her to stop dicking around with his two best friends. She says she can’t. He tells her he loves her. She says, “Everyone loves me.” And then he leaves. As he’s going she calls out that she’d like to be his friend and she seems so sincere that my heart breaks for her a little bit. Panda is her only real friend in the whole world, and Panda is fucking Cook. Effy is as lonely as JJ and she doesn’t even have any model airplanes to smash.

JJ shakes his head, though. He can’t be her friend.

Next on his non-stop, day-long tour of Bristol, JJ goes to Cook’s dorm room. He spies Panda there, all grotesquely post-coital (Why, Panda Pop? Why??) but hides so she can’t see him. He has a little bit of a tantrum in Cook’s room, but Cook hugs it out with him and they bounce to buy gear. They almost get busted, though, and Cook pushes JJ one step too far with his assholery. JJ feeds him STUN – but if he really wanted to get back at Cook, he should have given him vitamin C and a Coke.

Outside the club, Effy is leaning against the wall, bored with life, until Naomi breaks through the queue – makes a Naomtrance, Rophy would say – and asks Effy if she’s OK. Effy shrugs, not even sure what OK feels like anymore. Naomi inquires after James Jimmy Cook. Effy says, “Why would there be a Cook?” Naomi says she thought they were seeing one another and Effy clarifies that they are occasionally fucking each other. And this – God, this is so heartbreaking, how the goddamn genius Naomi Campbell needs basic emotional shit explained to her: “There’s a distinction?”

And her eyes. She’s not asking about Effy and Cook. Not at all. Not even a little bit. She’s not even being rhetorical. Naomi is so mindfucked about what she has allowed Emily to become to her that she honestly needs an answer to the question. They slept together, her and Emily. Emily made a believer out of her that one night. But if there’s a distinction, maybe Naomi can still save herself.

Effy flips it back around and enquirers after Emily Fitch. Naomi says, “Why would there be an Emily?” And then immediately: “That obvious?” She says she’s straight. Effy asks her if she’s sure. Naomi asks if she’d regret it if she said no, and Effy goes, “Probably. But not because of me.”

Not “probably you’d regret it because there’s something wrong with not being straight,” but “probably you’d regret it because if you say you’re not straight it means you really are in love with Emily, and love that big will ruin you.” The monster in Effy and Naomi’s closet is the same. The difference is: Naomi’s is a lot cu.

Naomi says, “We’re objects of lust.” And yeah, you are.

But you’re also objects of love.

Thomas walks outside the club and calls Effy and Naomi to him, and Katie and Freddie too. And here’s how you know Katie knows: She’s about to come out of her skin just standing near Naomi. Naomi has a part of Emily that Katie has never (and will never) have and Katie knows it. She hates Naomi for it. She’s terrified of Naomi because of it. Naomi asks if she’s going to be a bitch to her or what, and Katie says that yeah, she will; just give her time.

Cook and JJ round the corner, and Cook is … flying. Seriously. Like flapping his wings and soaring through the air. No one is happy to see him. Thomas says that Emily is already inside. Naomi drops her eyes and pretends not to care, pretends not to be affected by the very mention of Emily’s name. Katie snaps, “Where?” And the way she and Naomi’s heads snap ’round to survey each other, trying to size up what the other one knows about Emily, who is holding on to what part of her: It’s amazing.

Not amazing? Emily is trashed and Cook immediately jumps in there and starts feeling her up. Katie pulls her away because she’s never going to be done protecting her baby sister.

There’s a brawl inside the club, which leads to an alleyway, which leads Cook to spilling his guts. He confesses that Effy loves Freddie, not him. And that he’s been bonking Panda. Thomas overhears, of course, and is ready to thrax Cook, but Freddie steps in and stops him. JJ confesses that he kind of roofied Cook, and after all his worrying and trying to patch their family back together, he’s afraid he’s the one who finally did them in. Freddie says he needs some space and JJ is almost crying when he asks if he can still come to Freddie’s shed. And yes, of course he can. They will always be his family.

Rophy says: Did you just say thrax?

Heather says: Sophy told me to start a new section in my Australian slang journal for Rin-speak! So I did!

Out on the curb, JJ finds Emily coming off her high and shivering in the cold. She says she can’t go to her home, and so he invites her to his home.

The next morning she wakes up to find him making notes on his friendship board, wearing feety pajamas. (I have two pairs of feety pajamas, so don’t even start with me.)

Rophy says: Oh, mentioning your wardrobe again, are we? 🙂 🙂

She smiles. And he smiles. And I love them together.

JJ and Emily – much like Cook and Naomi – are a kind of kindred spirits, in that they’ve spent their entire lives being boxed-in by someone else’s definition of who they are. You heard JJ rattle off his definition to Emily on their picnic: retard, nut job, fag case, spazo, fob, autistic fucking fruitcake mental basket. And where do you think he heard that? Kids on the playground. Teachers. Counselors. Doctors. Freddie and Cook. And Katie’s been coloring in the lines that define Emily since they were born, dressing her up and putting words in her mouth like a Katie-shaped doll.

Yesterday JJ gave Emily something no one had ever given her in her life: the chance to say out loud who she is. That she’s gay. Even Naomi hasn’t allowed Emily to do that yet. Even in the deepest haze of their most intimate moment, Emily had to say, “I’m all about experiments, me.” Because she knew then, like she knows right now, that Naomi isn’t ready to bear the implication of that confession, the fullness of Emily’s love.

JJ let her say it. He embraced her for saying it and begged her to help him say the things he’d been needing to say for so long too. So she did. And then, when there was no safe place left for Emily to go – no place where she could be the new thing and the old thing at once – he brought her into his home and tucked her into his bed and let her rest. He kept her safe. He let her be.

Emily wakes up and sees JJ writing on his board, trying to work out who she is to him now. Trying to work out who he can be now. One of the first things JJ ever said was that the integrity of his unit had been preserved when he and Cook and Freddie were sorted into the same form. They are the only friends he’s ever had. And now he has Emily. It’s brand new, the whole world. She sees herself in him, I think, and she knows the one thing he wants more than anything is to lose his virginity. He defines himself as a hopeless virgin because Freddie and Cook define him as a hopeless virgin. And so Emily offers JJ the same thing he offered her: The chance to start writing his own story.

She says it’s a one time thing, a pity shag, and he says, “Because you’re gay?” She nods and pulls back the covers. He gets into bed with her. And then she says my favorite line ever uttered by any character in any book or movie or television show ever. She says, “I’m a lot of things, JJ.”

There are people – I know so many, and you know so many, and maybe you are one of these people – whose chosen default definition is “gay.” Being gay is the most important thing in your life; it’s the lens through which you view the entire world. You feel most comfortable around other gay people. You enjoy music best when it’s performed by lesbian musicians. Your favorite TV storylines involve queer characters. Gay rights are the most important thing on your agenda. You would never sleep with a boy and none of your friends who define themselves as queer would ever sleep with a boy. And that’s fine. That is a lot of people’s reality.

But it’s not everyone’s reality.

It’s not my reality.

I like girls. I like sex with girls. I like their rosey lips, their hard nipples, bums, soft thighs. I like tits and fanny, you know? That’s who I am. But it’s only one piece of fabric on the ever-growing quilt of who I am, stitched and patched together with sweat and tears and love and more fuck-ups than stars in the sky. I’m a lot of things.

The very core of human nature is self-preservation. We, as individuals, want to survive more than we want anything, and something deep inside us tells us we will be safest around people with whom who share language and customs and religion. People with whom we share a common history and a common destiny. And so we go looking for a label or a lunch table where we can sit and stay with people who are just like us, and shut out people who aren’t.

But there are also people who refuse to be locked-in to one definition. People who buy into the very Whitman-esque idea that we are large, that we contain multitudes, and therefore contradicting ourselves is the essence of life. It’s a brave way to live. And Emily Fitch is always going to choose the brave way to live.

It’s not wrong to live the other way. It’s not wrong to label yourself as one thing and cling to that definition with every fiber of your person. But Emily’s been defined by one thing since she was born, and she’s not going to start being defined by another one thing just because she likes boobs.

This is not the story of a gay girl who cheats on her girlfriend with a dude. This is the story of a girl who is lit up like fire by another girl. This is the story of a girl who comforts someone else while her burns are healing.

JJ introduces Emily to his mum. She is surprised, pleased, terrified. They share toast, and she watches him. They share an inside joke, and she watches him. They share a friendship, and she watches him. Her little boy. He can be quite cute. She taught him that.

And so did Emily.

All my attempts to make a friend had failed. I was a failure. I began to cry. Alone in the corner of the playground, I sobbed and smashed the toy truck into the ground again and again, until my hands hurt too much to do it anymore.

At the end of recess, I was still there, sitting by myself. Staring into the dirt. Too humiliated to face the other kids. Why don’t they like me? What’s wrong with me? That was where Miss Laird found me. She grabbed my little paw and towed me in.

– Look me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s, John Elder Robison

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button