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US “Skins” recap (1.04): I want to stab you!

I am beginning to wonder if maybe there is a slice of humble pie in my future. Or more than a slice. Or more than a pie. I’m beginning to wonder if maybe there is a bus-sized cake in my future that I am going to have to pop out of and shimmy and apologize to every lesbian I convinced to watch this show. I hope not. I mean, not that I mind being wrong in public. I’m better at being wrong than anything else on earth; what I hope is that Skins doesn’t force me to bake a humble cake.

Recapping for AfterEllen.com has been a dream of mine since I first read a Bad Girls recap by Scribegrrrl, and most days it’s the very best job on this earth. But it’s walking a tightrope while juggling flaming chainsaws, too, because there are a lot of interests I’m trying to service. More than anything, I just love great narrative, and sometimes it puts me at odds with the most vocal gay contingent. Easy stories are fun sometimes. I mean, look at Pretty Little Liars: It’s the easiest thing on TV right now and it’s about as fun as it gets. But I crave narrative that challenges my preconceptions and makes me uncomfortable and causes me to realign the stars to form entirely new constellations.

So here comes US Skins and never in my life have I had more implicit trust in a group of storytellers. The hate was hard from every corner of the internet from the genesis of the entire project. I was vocally optimistic. And then I saw the first few episodes and felt confident in my optimism. (“Faith is being sure of what you hope for,” that ol’ nutty Apostle Paul was known to say.) It wasn’t perfect, of course, but I’ve watched some really rough pilot seasons turn into the best stuff on television, and I believe in the Skins model and the Skins creative team.

Then Tea’s episode happened and a storm broke while I was on vacation, and I didn’t really even know about it until I got back home. And by “got back home” I mean “opened my email to the tune of 16 – no, I’m not kidding – assaults on me, personally, for my Tea recap.”

Now I’ve been around the lesbian internet long enough to know that nothing evokes more, um, passion than a lesbian character who hooks up with a man. In fact, in my whole life, I have only seen one thread in which there was any kind of mature dialogue happening on the subject. It always starts off breezy enough, but then someone starts questioning motives and someone else starts questioning labels and then everyone starts projecting their own leanings and experiences all over the place like all characters are blank slates, just imprinting like werewolves onto newborn babies. And then someone throws some mud, and then someone brandishes a knife, and then it’s just a giant brawl with hair-pulling and name-calling and clear-eyed people sneaking away and hoping not to get bludgeoned to death on their way out the door.

If you’ll sheath your machete for a second, I’ll tell you than I’m not really susceptible to gold star fever. I mean, I get it. I absolutely get it. The oldest trope in the book is a lesbian character finally finding true love in the male embrace, and that kind of story only reinforces the age-old, lame-ass belief that real life lesbians just haven’t found the right man yet. It’s infuriating, in large part because it’s 2011 and some of us are still hearing that nonsense from all kinds of angles. But sometimes I think it makes sense within a certain narrative framework to have a queer female character hook up with a man. (I said put your knife away!) I know I’m in the minority of the minority here, but it works for me on a storytelling level ocassionally. It worked for me in The Kids Are All Right (and probably you’re going to kill me now for sure), and it worked for me in Skins gen two with Emily and JJ, and Naomi and Cook.

So here’s what happened: I got home from vacation last week to the most brutal personal attacks that have ever been leveled at me, and then the preview for “Cadie” aired and people just redoubled their efforts. My posture was already defensive because of the hate, and I learned not to get hysterical about previews back when The West Wing was still on the air, and I kind of just thought folks were overreacting because obviously Tea is legitimately gay, right? We’re talking about the team of writers who brought us Naomi and Emily? The ones who weathered the rage over JJ and Cook? We’re talking about a character who has been presented as a confident, self-assured, sex-positive lesbian from the moment she was conceived, aren’t we?

That was my reasoning, and I truly felt the conviction of it – right up until Tony and Tea had their little conversation about how she “felt something” for him last night.

The first time I saw Kissing Jessica Stein, I was just coming to terms with my own sexuality and I was crushed when Jessica ended up with a man. But as I’ve watched that movie again over the years – with a little distance from the closet – I’ve come to realize what a masterpiece it is in terms of dialogue about sexual fluidity. For many women, that is their reality. But not for all women. Sexuality simply is not fluid for everyone, and I think Tea was packaged and sold as a character who is sure she is not into men.

This is a lot of words to say one thing, and that is that I am still hopeful that Tea isn’t going to find herself in love with Tony. But after last night’s episode I am prepared for the eventuality that it might happen. If it does, I will be more deeply disappointed than I can even say. Because of the way Tea was presented, because of the way her episode played, because of the writers’ experience with queer female characters who hook up with guys, and mostly because it doesn’t make narrative sense. I’m not imprinting my own stuff onto Tea. I’ve got zero problems with sexual fluidity and if Colin Firth comes a-knockin’, I’m a-gonna be Darcy-rockin’. I’ve got zero heterophobia, also. Nearly all of my best friends are straight. I like to be challenged with narrative, but I also like to be shown the truth. And for Tea, Tony simply does not feel like the truth.

I think Sofia Black D’Elia is fantastic. I think Bryan Elsley is a genius. There are things about Tea that are marvelous. There were things about Tea’s episode that nearly slayed me with perfection. I hope the trajectory continues in that direction. Skins is so much better than hackneyed tropes and reinforced misleading stereotypes.

I hope you don’t think I was blowing off your valid concern last week. I had my back up for all the reasons I said, but I always want to give you the best of me, because that’s what you deserve. I want you to know I hear you and I see you and I care very much about our collective story.

But we should talk about Cadie, huh?

WASN’T CADIE SO GOOD? Cadie was the first episode of US Skins that really felt like Skins to me, and because of that, it was the first time I got a little nervous at the prospect of the show getting canceled. Because it could be like this! It could be this good! It could be this Skins-y! It could look like Skins and it could sound like Skins and it could feel like Skins and at the end of the episode we could turn off the telly and feel like better people! Am I right?

I think I’m most surprised because Cassie is my favorite gen one character (and one of my all-time favorite characters ever) and a verbatim remake would have been the worst idea. But the episode was different enough to make it feel fresh and Britne Oldford‘s performance was inspired. She wasn’t channeling Hannah Murray channeling Cassie; she was inhabiting Cadie. The best way I can ever think to describe Cassie is “ethereal” and Cadie is that a little bit, but there’s a different kind of raw darkness happening with her.

Skins, as you know, has a way with parents and mental health care professionals. “Cadie” could be a guide book to Skins‘ whole adult philosophy. In one corner, you’ve got her parents: Her dad is an eccentric artist whom she adores (and maybe also fantasizes about killing), and her mom is a former pageant queen whose number one goal is to cash in on America’s shark bait reality TV mentality before it literally causes society to crumble. (And make no mistake, that day is coming! The apocalypse will be heralded in by the Real Housewives riding astride the steeds of the four horsemen!)

Cadie’s papa loves her, but doesn’t really have much time for her, what with the hunting and crafting and taxidermy. Cadie’s mom doesn’t so much love her or, you know, tolerate her. Her number one priority is Pageant Rematch, and even though Cadie is “a little bit kooky and a little bit flat-chested” she’s hoping she’ll be medicated enough to smile for the camera crew when they arrive. (Spoiler Alert: She won’t!)

In the other corner, you’ve got at least three shrinks treating her for various things that don’t really ping any particular DSM-IV criteria. Cadie’s main thing is her compulsion/revulsion surrounding birds, which: a) Poe feels ya on the terror, girl. [Nevermore! Nevermore!] And b) Frost feels ya on the whole roads/paths/travelers waylaid by indecision thing, girl. [A small bird flew before me. He was careful / To put a tree between us when he lighted / And say no word to tell me who he was.]

Shrink the first responds to Cadie’s deceleration of happiness by saying, “My vagina has the look and feel of turkey jerky.” Shrink the second is happy to prescribe a shit ton of pills in a cacophony of colors because America doesn’t have that cure-all pill called STUN like the UK Skins shrinks do. Also, Oldford’s delivery of “I want to stab you” is the best US Skins moment so far. Shrink the third may know a little something; he suggests that Cadie stop taking drugs: “Everyone is going to disappoint you, Cadie. They won’t mean to, but they will. Drugs won’t change that.” That’s a really Marley-esque thing to say, guy. I like that. (“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”)

And may I just say: I don’t think Stanley is one of the ones worth suffering for. OK, because the other Skins thing is urban families, right? The families we create when our own families are batshit crazy. Unfortunately, Tony is at the head of this table and his brand of arrogance and menace and apathy has just about pushed me over the edge. Stanley invites Cadie to Michelle’s party, promising a date, but really just meaning: Can you bring your drugs? Cadie is so (inexplicably) into him that she’s all over it. At the party, he totally blows her off and then beats off on Michelle’s bed while smoking a joint.

In other party hijinks, Regina George and Michelle are sisters and the reason I know is because when Cadie shows up the party, Michelle’s mom teeters over and says, “I just want you to know, if you ever need anything, don’t be shy, OK? There are no rules in the house. I’m not like a regular mom, I’m a cool mom.” You know who’s not a cool parent? Michelle’s dad (step-dad?) who makes it his mission to get into Cadie’s pants as soon as she walks in the door.

Tony is forlorn. Tea is making out with a girl and he’s just staring and pining and generally not making any sense. Except, actually yes he is. Because Tony gets everything he wants and he’s not getting Tea and so that makes him want her even more. Standard. Tea’s makeout buddy is straight off some kind of commune where they make, like, heirloom, open-pollinated, non-GMO, organic seeds. Tea tells Abbud that the girl doesn’t “interface with men.” Which, to be fair, is what I’d tell Abbud, too, if he ever tried to talk to me. And then the girl gets all flummoxed about male energy or something and bounces after telling Tea, “This party is so heteronormative and your friends are totally gender-coercive!” Bullet: dodged.

Cadie overhears Tony being even more gay than Super Lesbian, though, telling Tea, “You felt something for me and don’t tell me you didn’t because I know you did and you can’t deny it because the feelings that you felt are valid feelings on the feeling spectrum. And you felt them. You did. It is something I know for sure according to the feelings I am having on my own.” You know where you’re falling on my feeling spectrum, Tony? Somewhere between “I want to punch you in the neck” and “Four seconds to getting kneecapped.”

When he storms out of the room with an emotionally-manipulative, “Fine! BE ALONE FOREVER!” Cadie stops him and says, “You can’t just keep doing whatever you want, you know. Things can’t always work out for you.” And I hope she’s right.

Tea’s got a whole lot of guilt about hooking up with Michelle’s boyfriend, and a whole lot of confusing feelings about Tony. So in her misery she confesses to Cadie that Stanley only invited her to the party for her drugs, and tells her everyone should all try to be better. F–king Tony especially.

So to retaliate and work out her daddy issues, Cadie decides to seduce Michelle’s step-dad(?). (Seriously, who is this guy?) Stanley sees Cadie close the curtains to an upstairs bedroom and the presence of a pigeon somehow alerts him that Cadie is going to self-destruct. So he rushes to her aide and says something that cannot be substantiated by any of his previous behavior, but OK. He says he cares when Cadie falls apart. He gives Cadie his t-shirt and she goes home to rethink that whole no-drugs policy.

Her mom finds her wrecked the next morning, and she’s furious. All her mom asked her to do was smile like she was pretty, and this is the thanks she gets? Cadie sits up, pops a purple pill and thinks a little bit more about birds and Robert Frost.

He spent himself, the labour of his axe,

And leave it there far from a useful fireplace

To warm the frozen swamp as best it could

With the slow smokeless burning of decay.

Hey, guys? Thanks for holding my hand through the cat flap.

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