TV

“Skins” recap (1.07): Consequences of The Clap

It’s Tuesday night in Eastern Seaboard American City, and you know what that means: Time to get your rave on! Tony and Michelle are going at it against the wall of a thumping club, and I confess I flashed back to the opening of UK Skins series four, hoping against hope to see that girl Sophia stumble by, wearing jean shorts and a 1.21 jiggawatt cataclysmic grin. (Adultery, like chlamydia, makes a party go with such a swing!) But no. The only cheating c–ksucker this time around is Tony. Michelle tells him she loves him and he pretends, repeatedly, not to hear her, before pulling her back to the bar where thinks Tea might be hanging out.

Michelle tells Daisy that she and Tony were “reconnecting.” And oh, honey, no. That is not what that was at all. Betty is at the rave (hi, Betty!) and she drags Michelle out onto the dance floor because my imagination just needed that much of a boost to turn this thing into a Tea/Betty/Michelle love triangle.

Tea sees them dancing together and is like, “Sufferin’ succotash, why are my insides on fire? There’s a monster inside of me trying to claw his way through my skin! What is happening?” Right? Because Tea has probably never been jealous a day in her life. That’s what happens when no one matches up to you. Like even as a kid, if someone stole her crayons, she was probably all, “That’s cool. I’ll just color with my vastly superior box of 96 CRAYOLAS.” She is five seconds from bolting when Daisy does the best friend thing ever. She overrides Tea’s internal struggle with an external challenge: “I dare you to go dance with her.” So then it’s not about Tea’s desires and Tea’s vulnerabilities and Tea’s envy; it’s about proving something to Daisy rather than herself. (Can’t wait to know you next week, Daisy!)

Tea stalks over like some kind of lioness and wraps Betty’s arm around her. Michelle sort of smirks and leaves them to it. She wants to go home with Tony and bone some more, but he’d rather glower at Betty and Tea while Abbud glowers at him glowering at Betty and Tea. Michelle wakes up with Tony, though, in her own house in her own bed. Probably they’re not sure how they got there.

Apparently the guy who was trying to molest Cadie at that pool party a couple of weeks ago wasn’t Michelle’s step-dad at all. He was one of many boxcars on the Michelle’s Mom Express. Today, the caboose will be Jason or Johnson or Jack or Jerry or all four. No one seems to know. Michelle scampers off to the OBGYN by herself, where the good doctor mixes up Michelle’s chart with her mom’s chart. It’s a full-service visit, anyway, but all Michelle wanted was more birth control.

At school, Tea is – get this – holding Betty’s hand, and steering her toward the gang’s table in the Nutbush. Everyone’s eyeballs bug out of their heads because Tea is a lover, a fighter, a f–ker and a ball of fire, but she is not a hand-holder. She’s like, “Shove it, we’ve been spending a lot of time together.” Betty agrees in the most syrupy voice you’ve ever heard, and then: public canoodling! Which means, of course, that everything is about to fall apart in spectacular fashion.

Michelle gets a call from her doctor, and then one of my favorite director things happens. The camera gets in on her face, closer and closer and closer, until you can only see parts of it and her mouth is going, “Wait, what? I have what? Chlamydia? What?” And then it pans out and her brain goes click! click! and her long legs eat up the cafeteria floor in a flash and she is kicking the table and then backhanding Tony with her fist and kicking him right in the babymaker. Like Batman. I’m serious. Like Kapow! And Crrrraaack! And Thwack! And Zwaap!

Tony gets exactly zero sympathy, and Betty even pauses on the way out the door to spit on him and go, “You are a life ruiner. You ruin lives.” And she doesn’t even know the half of it yet.

Now. I’ve been doing some thinking and here are the thoughts I’ve thunk: I hate Tony. When this scene was released as a preview, I air-punched and I watched it twice. I had an almost aching desire to watch Michelle beat the shit out of him in slow motion. It would probably take three full hours of therapy to clear it up completely, but it’s weird because I never loathed Tony Stonem. I never loathed Cook, either. You may loathe me, though, when I tell you I am much fonder of US Michelle than UK Michelle. There’s just something about Rachel Thevenard. I don’t know. Ever since she shoved that hot dog in her mouth and said, “Impulsive. I like that in a girl” I’ve kind of loved her. Also, I’m probably projecting some residual fandom rage onto Tony because of my weird middleman place in the whole lezzorama tantrum that’s been raining down like brimstone around my ears. Like, you know, “Yeah, let’s take it out on him instead! Boooo, you whore! *crotch kick*”

And, I mean, I don’t feel that way about Tea at all. She’s complicit in the whole debacle. Hell, she’s probably more culpable than Tony. But the difference between her and Tony, I think – and, again, this may all be down to Sofia Black-D’elia‘s acting skills – is that Tea is ripped up inside about the whole thing. Remorse and pride aren’t bedfellows, but she shelves the propaganda for the truth: She’s sorrier than she can say.

Michelle wakes up talking to her chlamydia antibiotics like some kind of Cadie. She tells them the story of her and Stanley, about how they were besties, shared hair products and everything, until Tony came along and f–ked them all up. And then she has the bright idea to shag away her pain with her ol’ best mate. That idea lasts for the entire three milliseconds it takes Stanley to blow his load when Michelle touches him. They tear Tony out of all their photos and light them on fire and make a pact to dance on his grave. “Naked?” Stanley asks hopefully.

Daisy finally gives Michelle a full list of the people Tony’s been screwing around with, except for Tea because she doesn’t know about Tea. And Tea comes over to comfort her too. She tries to confess on repeat, but instead of hearing it Michelle asks if Tea is going to try to make it work with Betty. Tea’s like, “I don’t know. I guess. Yeah. Yes. Yes, I am.”

Only, no she’s not. At school the next day, Tony calls Michelle “Nips” because a black eye and a bruised scrotum weren’t warning enough for him, I guess. She gets in his face and calmly explains that if he ever calls her that again, she will serve his balls up in an omelet that she will force him to eat before she breaks his neck with her bare hands. And then she accidentally knocks over Tea’s bag, and out spill the chlamydia antibiotics, and click! click!.

Betty is three clicks! behind because no effing way. But Michelle clears it up for her.

Tea follows Michelle home and tries to apologize, and Michelle says the truest and most heartbreaking thing of all: That Tea is a lesbian! She knows she’s a lesbian! But she betrayed Michelle anyway, even though she didn’t even enjoy sleeping with Tony, even though she knew it would never work, because she wanted something inside his head. She says it’s the first time she’s ever seen Tea cry, and she slams the door in her face.

Remember in Anna Karenina when Tolstoy said that boredom is the desire for desires? Tea makes me think of Russian tragedy in more ways than one, but, really, it was “The girls I sleep with bore me. Is it too much to ask for someone to be interesting?” that really did her in. Tony’s arrogance piqued her interest because she was bored. I mean, that’s true at any age: It is some kind of intoxicating when someone can volley your wit or intellect. And what in the world do you do with that kind of thrill when your frame of reference is confined to 16 years and a small town? It’s human nature to grab at the things that stimulate you, and it’s a hard life fact that sometimes your world only gets bigger after your Id blows it to smithereens. Tea grabbed at everything that delighted her, just like ol’ Anna K. And now she’s lost it all too. Good Lord, I hope she’s not the one who ends up smashed by a bus!

Michelle invites Tony over for a shag. He says, “You love me and I’ll change.” But she’s the one who has changed. She’s a smart girl; her principal told her so just yesterday. She’s a smart girl who learned a sh–ty lesson, but the prize is she gets to kick Tony out of her bed with a promise to axe murder him if he comes near her again. (Maybe Daisy will dare him! Fingers crossed!)

The other smart thing Michelle does is meet up with Betty to take the Chinatown bus to Boston. Betty is running from Tea. Michelle is running from everyone. They hold hands and I think, Impulsive. Michelle likes that in a girl. And then I laugh. Because what could quell a mob of angry gays like sexual fluidity, reversed. Michelle rests her head on Betty’s shoulder and cries. The lights of Eastern Seaboard American City whizz by. And the fan fiction rolls on.

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

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button