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“Skins” retro recap 3.09: Katie and Emily

There’s a joke my friends and family make 10 times a day about how I cry when I get to the bottom of a bowl of cereal because I don’t want the things I love to end. And it’s so true. Every holiday break, my roomie/bestie and I marathon a show we’ve never watched and by the time we get to that last set of DVDs – if the show’s any good – I’ll make every excuse under the sun not to watch them. Gotta organize the Tupperware, do a blind taste test of every single brand of peanut butter, catalog my comic books, refurbish that antique gumball machine that’s been sitting in the garage since 2003. I hate when things are over; I just want to know there’s more.

I’ve been staring at a blank page for several hours trying to write the last Skins retro-recap, and I can’t decide if I just don’t want it to end, or if I’ve really said everything I want to say about Naomily. If Google Docs are to be believed, I’ve written 100,000 words about Skins this year, which is half of a New Testament. I started 2010 with a Skins recap, and I’m ending 2010 with a Skins recap – and it’s fitting. It’s so fitting. Because 2010 was the Year of Naomily.

When Dr. Ann-Marie Cook interviewed me about her Noamily book, the strongest point I wanted to make was that you have to contextualize Skins to really understand how impressive the whole Naomily phenomenon has been.

Naomi and Emily topped our all-time Top 50 Lesbian and Bisexual characters poll. Lily Loveless and Kathryn Prescott both ranked in the top 10 in our 2010 Hot 100. And Skins owned the 2010 Visibility Awards, sweeping every category they were nominated in: Best Drama, Best Lesbian/Bi character (Emily), Favorite TV Actress (Loveless), and best couple. (And let’s not forget that Meg Prescott and Kaya Scodelario showed strong in the Hot 100, too.)

That’s impressive, sure; but it’s astounding when you put it into context. The majority of AfterEllen.com readers are Americans. Our site is staffed mostly by Americans. Skins is a British show that airs on E4. It’s not readily available to most of us. It’s not even something we see advertised to us. Fox spends one gazillion dollars year to make, say, Glee more popular than God; they export it to every country under the sun. Anyone, almost anywhere in the world, can watch Glee. But you’ve got to want to watch Skins if you live outside the UK. You’ve got to dig for it and beg for it and bribe for it, and sometimes obtain it via – ahem – questionable means. We do whatever it takes to get our hands on Skins and then we love it so much we choose it over big-budget American network shows and A-list Hollywood celebrities and epic lesbian couples that have been around for ages. (And by “we” I mean “you and me,” the fans. Not “we,” the AE staff.)

If American network shows are the blue whales of the TV ocean, Skins is a clownfish. (“You think you can do these things, Nemo, but you can’t!”) (But he can!) It is the small guy, but it is also the very best guy. Naomily, specifically, was a perfect storm of writing and acting and costuming and directing and music. Skins deserved every accolade we gave it this year.

In Ratatouille Anton Ego has this great epiphany that pretty much sums The Year of Naomily for me:

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.

Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau’s, who is, in this critic’s opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau’s soon, hungry for more.

I’ve written 100,000 words about Skins this year, but really they’ve all been superfluous. Picasso said art is lie that tells the truth, and Skins is the embodiment of that maxim. This recap of 3.09 isn’t going to be super long or super detailed because I’ve run out of time. And anyway, Skins has always spoken for itself, Naomi and Emily – and Katie F–king Fitch – most of all.

Katie F–king Fitch is looking fierce outside of Roundview, sashaying toward her history exam to the dulcet tones of Lady Gaga. Only guess what? It’s not Katie F–king Fitch at all. It’s Emily Fitch disguised as Katie Fitch disguised as a punching bag. Doug is easily fooled. I mean, yes: Doug is easily fooled. But in this case he is easily fooled by Emily. Not so much fooled is JJ, who somehow deduces that it’s Emily by staring at her rack. Also not fooled is Naomi, who is waiting for Emily beside Katie’s locker, all flirty smiles and touchy hands and mixed messages. (Remember when I compared Naomi to Gollum a long time ago? It’s like that.)

She gives Emily an up-down that almost sets her clothes on fire, says she should dress like that more often, says Emily looks nice, says she’s going away to Cyrpus to do some thinking. By herself. She says it three times: “By myself.” And then she goes, “Let’s be friends.” Emily says, “We say that, don’t we?” And I think she means, “We say let’s be friends and then four seconds later we’re ripping each other’s clothes off or cuddling in a bouncy castle or making love in the forest, huh?” Naomi wistfully says, “Yeah. Well, have a good summer.” (The way she says “yeah” is reminiscent of Cassie a little bit, and there’s literally no comparison there, but it’s sweet.)

Emily just sort of shrugs and sighs because magic can do a lot of things, but it can’t make another person brave. One more time, though – just one more time – she’s going to be brave enough for both of them. “I’ll miss you,” she calls out – and Naomi stops. The way her shoulders heave, you know she knows her body is going to do the next thing all on its own. She turns on her heel and smashes Emily against the lockers, kissing her with a desperation we’ve never seen and saying, “I can’t stand it. I can’t. Jesus.” Emily whispers it’s OK and they hop on out of there to Naomi’s house.

Sometimes I wonder if God created the sun just so he could shine it on Naomi and Emily. Nobody lights up light the way they do.

Their lipstick is smeared and their hair is askew and their limbs are akimbo and Naomi is smiling like Christmas. I wonder – you have to wonder, don’t you – if this is the Naomi that Emily saw all along. Emily makes Naomi laugh, relishes it; caresses Naomi’s back, delights in it. Naomi calls what they have a “secret,” and Emily says her name, just once: “Naomi?” like a prayer. Naomi smiles and the sun gets brighter.

Emily wants them to go to the ball, like a couple. Naomi doesn’t want to because she’s “not sure” like Emily. Emily says, “Fine, you like boys, too” assuming Naomi means she’s not sure about the whole queer thing, but I always get the feeling that Naomi is not sure about the whole “relationship/love/soul mate when you’re 16” thing. Naomi’s not the kind of girl to shy away from a little controversy; she is, however, the kind of girl to just f–king bolt from undiluted adoration. (And we know that, of course, because of time travel.) Emily begs it: “Come to the ball with me!” Naomi says no. And Emily storms out, half-dressed with a shot right to the heart: She’s not an experiment; she’s got more self-respect than that. And she’s done holding hands through the cat-flap.

Out in the cold, in the rain, Thomas finds Emily at a bus stop. He gives her his coat, his shoes, and she gives him the truth: “I’m gay, Thomas.” He’s affectionately impassive about it, worried about what actually matters – that she’s going to freeze to death – and so he shuttles her into a taxi and sends her home.

(I like to think that’s what it will be like to come out in 15 years. “I’m gay.” “Cool, do you want to order pizza or Chinese for dinner?”)

At home, Katie’s been moping about all day in a dressing gown, uncovering Emily’s stash of porn and noticing for the first time ever that she is to David Beckham as Emily is to Audrey Hepburn. I wish I had time wax lyrical about this entire scene because it’s one of my favorites on any show ever. Why can’t there be a Fitch Family sitcom? WHY WHY WHY? What’s important is that James Fitch is amazing in every way, dropping bombs like the “F” one and “bollocky wankshite” all over the dinner table. Rob sits there looking exactly like my college boyfriend talking about pish-ups exactly like my college boyfriend. (I’m serious. The first time I saw this episode I sent a screencap to my sister and said, “Who does this look like?” And she said, “OMG! [Name of college boyfriend]!”)

Emily comes in dressed like Katie dressed like a thunderstorm.

Jenna wants to know if a “boy did this” to her. Emily says it was a girl. Rob says fighting with a girl isn’t ladylike, and Emily comes out in the most spectacular fashion: “No, Dad, I’ve been making love to a girl, OK? Everyone satisfied? Her name’s Naomi; she’s rather beautiful, so I was nailing her.”

Rob thinks it’s the funniest joke he’s ever heard and he laughs and laughs.

Upstairs, after dinner, Katie’s like, “Whew, close call.” And Emily is so disgusted that she calls Katie a slut in about eleven different ways. Katie goes to sleep crying. The next morning they wake up speaking twin, like from when they were kids – gah! I need more time to talk about it! – and Katie coerces Emily into going to the Love Ball.

Oh, but wait! The house, it has known magic! Was Santa here? No, in fact; it was Naomi Campbell. She came by to love Emily out loud, but Jenna chased her off talking about, “She and Katie are two halves of a whole. A heterosexual whole. Now scram before their father wakes up and attacks you!”

Outside of the only vintage shop in Bristol, apparently, Panda is returning her dress. Katie says they’ll just all go together since Thomas is still pissed about the cheating. Panda screams, “GO GIRLS!” And Katie awesomely goes, “Yeah … uh … GO GIRLS! … right.” Freddie and JJ have come to shop, too, and Katie decides that the four of them will go to the ball together because Freds owes it to her. (And he does.) Freddie lets slip about JJ and Emily and their cute socks and the pity shag, and Dark Katiekins flashes behind Katie’s eyes.

She and Emily claw at each other on the way home. Katie’s like, “You have to ask if you want to shag someone!” And Emily’s all, “The hell you say!” And somewhere Naomi is phoning and phoning and phoning with no answer. Finally, she does get an answer. Emily says to meet her for coffee, but then: that twin thing works both ways. Surprise! At coffee is Katie! Katie literally says, “She’s mine. You’ll never love her as much as I do.” Which: Both true in their own ways, but not how Katie thinks it. Naomi says, “She can’t help what she is, Katie. And neither can I.” Dark Katiekins is in full-effect, word vomiting about how Emily could “help it when she was f–king JJ.”

At the ball, where Katie and Emily are wearing matching dresses, Naomi arrives and calls Emily right out about JJ. “She’s a great shag, isn’t she JJ?” Emily says she was going to tell her, and Naomi – just dragons clawing at her insides – goes, “But you didn’t, did you, hun?”

And then there is a brawl. Naomi attacks Katie and then Emily attacks Katie and they bang around in the classrooms and through the hallway and into the gym. Finally Emily gets her shit together, helps Katie to her feet and shakes it down thus: “I love you. I’ll never leave you, not really. But I like girls. No. I like a girl. No. I love her. Her.” She points to Naomi and then takes off her Katie dress to reveal an Emily dress. Emily walks over to Naomi, takes her hand, and leads her away.

On the way out the door, Naomi says, “I love you, too.” And Emily says, “I know.”

I could say a million more things. A million billion gazillion more things. But, then, I’d just be Naomi, telling you something you already know.

See you in 2011, thirsty for more.

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