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“Skins” recap (4.07): Effy Stonem and the Demon Headmaster

I am going to spoil the ending of this entire episode in the first paragraph, so if you don’t want to know what happened on last night’s Skins and/or be seized with eternal terror, stop reading now.

I mean it.

Remember how I’m always saying Effy has magic powers? Well, now I understand that Effy has a specific kind of magic power called Effy is a Veela. OK? Effy is a Veela and her voice is a siren and every man who sails a ship will crash into the Isle of Eff. Some will live, and some will die, and some will hack the other sailors into pieces or peel off their skin – which is the case with Doctor F-ckster, who is, I guess, fashioning a Freddie-shaped coat out of Freddie, which he intends to wear while axe-murdering Effy.

OK, recap over. Now, go find yourself a Freffy shipper and hug it out.

Wait, no – hang on. I have two more things to say:

1) It was 3 a.m., thundering and lightning like mad as I watched this epsidoe. At the very end, when the camera panned outside the door and Dr. F-ckster started walloping Freddie with his bat, I was already terrified – but at the exact moment the blood splattered against the window, the top shelf of my walk-in closet collapsed, which caused every other shelf in my closet to collapse, and it was just this percussion of books and boxes and picture frames and clothes and old laptops and whatever else just crashing and smashing, in the middle of the night in the middle of a storm in the middle of a murder, ten feet from my head.

2) I think we’re all pretty clear that deconstructing narrative is my favorite thing in life, but having Effy’s psychiatrist beat Freddie to death with a baseball bat is the dumbest thing I have ever seen. I am trying to think of anything that has ever repulsed me like that on TV.

I mean, I watch a lot of stupid shows on the regular with my nephew, like Yo Gabba Gabba, which will give your mind a seizure; and Thomas the Tank Engine, whose narrator thinks every time is the right time for a Sunday School lesson; and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, which is annoying to a brain-melting degree, even though Wubzy’s best friends are flaming homosexuals. And yeah, those are dumb. But my nephew is three. He doesn’t know he deserves better.

So I am going to recap everything besides Dr. F-ckster’s scenes because Skins is better than that, and we’re better than that. And aren’t there more important things to scare kids about than getting legitimate psychiatric treatment from legitimate psychiatric professionals?

The Low Anthem’s “Charlie Darwin” is the most depressing song ever written, and certainly not something you should listen to when you’re: a) going through a breakup, and/or b) reading a book called The Demon Headmaster. (Imaginary subtitle: Dolores Umbridge.) But that’s what Effy is doing.

The tick-tick-ticking in the background of this scene – as in every scene featuring Dr. F-ckster – is the least subtle time-bomb foreshadow ever. Inspector Gadget could find and diffuse this time-bomb, is how loud and dumb it is.

And that sucks because I get the time/reality thing this episode is aiming for, and I get the juxtaposition between Freddie/Effy and Naomi/Emily with regard to those two things. And even though I really don’t like to compare the two couples because I know how fandoms are, I think the writers could have said something really special and really neat within the parameters of those themes – but then they had to get “edgy” and kill Freddie for absolutely no valid reason.

OK, I said I wasn’t going to talk about it anymore, and I’m not.

Yes, I am.

See, because the thing I love about Skins is how the absurdity is tempered with authenticity. Like how sci-fi is the silliest business but the feelings you feel are fact. You can learn more from Caprica than you can from Grey’s Anatomy, even though Cylons are so imaginary and cancer is not. I love Emily and Naomi’s storyline this season even though some of you hate it, because it feels so real. Every one of Naomi’s actions and Emily’s reactions are organic and heartbreaking. And it’s not fair to not show that same respect to Freddie’s character.

Now I’m done. (Probably.)

Effy sits outside and watches patients do some healthy anger exercises or something, and Naomi wanders up so they can talk about the same thing while meaning two entirely different things, and also be cute.

Effy: How’s the real world?

Naomi: Fine – well, I don’t know actually. Me and Emily, we’re all … since … you know … the … and I don’t know what we’re doing – if we’re OK, or if we’re about to break up. Sometimes I think she can read my mind. I seriously do. I mean is that … normal? Is that what you – Eff?

Effy: You think you’re going mad, so you came to see me to see what a mad person looks like.

Naomi: No. No! NO! … Yes.

Loveless and Scodelario have always played off each other so well; that was perfect.

This is perfect, too: Naomi is bringing up something Freddie is going to talk about in a few minutes, and that’s whether or not love should drive a person mad. It’s actually one of the central quandaries for both of these couples and it’s one thing Freddie and Emily have in common: the courage to embrace the fall.

Naomi and Effy are/were both terrified of it – to varying degrees of intensity, for entirely different reasons – and they handle/d it in different ways. Effy self-medicated, like we talked about. And Naomi clawed at control by cheating, like we also talked about. And I’ve been saying this as loudly as I can, but we still don’t have a handle on the depth of Naomi’s fear of loving Emily with such intensity. And Naomi doesn’t either – but she’s getting there.

Effy: Listen to me very carefully, Naomi – you need to get a message to the Dog Lord of Azibijan. He’s got my toilet ticket.

Naomi: [Laughing] Oh, God. What are they giving you – and can I have some?

I don’t understand why they don’t just go get some of those catch-all pills like JJ and Emily got at Psycho(logical) Support last year. The staff pass those things out like Tic-Tacs, and they cure everything. Plus, as you know, Veritaserum always gets a party going. And maybe while they’re at it, someone can get Effy an appointment with JJ’s counselor, because “Just don’t do that” seems like a much better therapy method than scrubbing someone’s brain with soap and LIES.

Effy: This whole thing with this … girl, Sophia. Why don’t you just imagine it never happened?

Naomi: But it did.

Effy: But what if you tried to think like you didn’t.

Naomi: Am I missing something? You can’t change what already happened. I wish you could. But you just … can’t.

Naomi doesn’t want to say or hear Sophia’s name ever again. She actually winces when Effy says it out loud.

Elvis Perkins In Dearland sings “Send My Fond Regards To Lonelyville,” which sounds happier than than “Charlie Darwin,” but it’s not. Make of that what you will. Effy unpacks her stuff. Her mum has cleaned all of the clutter out of her room, like maybe that contributed to Effy losing her mind, in which case, Effy should stay out of my office. And my recently-imploded closet.

Effy heads over to Freddie’s and he is shocked and excited to see her, but also worried because pretty soon she’s telling him that Dr. F-ckster took all the bad memories of Freddie away, and the only thing left now is love.

What Effy doesn’t know – and neither does Emily, at this moment, actually – is that the feeling of love is only the apex of what my friend Jacob calls our icebergs. There’s the tip, and the part above the water that everyone can see, and also there’s the unfathomable part of it below you that’s always wrecking ships. All of it feels impossible, but all of it is the only way it’s immovable.

Freddie is confounded, but also he’s a teenage boy, so they waste no time before bonking, and the whole time Effy is like, “We’re OK. We’re OK. We’re OK.”

The next morning – I think it’s the next morning. Skins writers are so fast-and-loose with the space-time continuum it’s hard to tell – Panda wakes up Effy, squealing into the phone “I missed you! I missed you! I missed you!” and they head on over to Roundview to get the results of their A-levels.

Effy didn’t sit hers because of being in the hospital, but she wants to give it a go (which: good luck, lady; there’s barely any information at all left inside your noggin), but Mr. David Blood Expels-a-lot tells her that she’s dragging the whole class down, thus dragging funding down, so here’s three As, and keep it on the quiet. Effy says it’s a lie, and because he’s a tool belt, Professor Expels-a-lot goes: “In my experience, Ms. Stonem, we are all living lies. Reality, as the sophists so elegantly informed us, is all relative.”

You know what the number one sophist also said? “Death is not the worst that can happen to men.”

That’s not exactly what you’d call consolation for Freffy shippers, though, is it?

Effy arrives alone to their celebration party. See how the window is all blurry and she’s on the outside and they’re on the inside and she can barely make out who they are anymore? Almost as subtle as F-ckster’s tick-tick-ticking.

Inside, everyone goes around and reads out the results of their A-levels. Naomi got three As of course, and Emily got two Bs and a C. (Guess she should have had someone look over her coursework who was actually studying politics.) Everyone cheers the loudest for Thomas who stands up to say he got expelled, and then Effy says goodbye to everyone, including Freddie, and rushes out of the pub.

Katie goes, “She dumped you again!” Because Katie is awesome, and I love her.

Skulking around in the rain like the Heathcliff to Effy’s Catherine, Cook is smoking a cigarette.

Effy: Aren’t you supposed to be in prison or something?

Cook: Aren’t you supposed to be in the loony bin?

Effy: I did my time; you should do yours.

Cook: I did enough. Surely Effy Stonhem’s not abandoning a party.

Effy: I don’t belong in there.

Cook: Neither do I. We’ve got a lot in common, me and you.

Effy: Not anymore.

Cook: We’re both standing in the rain. We’re both miserable.

Speaking of which, I am glad to see it actually raining on this show for once. With all those Skins-tinted skies, you’d think these kids lived in California. I’ve spent months in Britain and I’ve never gone a day without rain. Effy’s uninterested in Cook’s jargon, even though, as the sophists so elegantly informed us, the touch of love makes everyone a poet.

See?

If this was us meeting for the first time, I’d do it all again. The f-cks, the f-ck-ups, everything. I’d do it all again.

At home, Effy rips up her room looking for her stuffed giraffe. (She can’t find her past: subtle metaphor number three.) And then she sets everything that was important to her on fire. (And number four.)

(You’re right; I’m being harsh. I am still reeling about Freddie.)

The next day Freddie shows up to confront her about breaking up with him again. He grabs her and kisses her.

Effy: Don’t do that! I went crazy when I was with you. I can’t let that happen again! Love’s not supposed to do that. You made me mad!

Cook: You’re making me mad now, Effy. And that’s exactly what love’s supposed to do.

Cook finds Effy on a park bench and she tells him she’s never noticed the pond before. She introduces herself as Elizabeth and he thinks she’s playing a game, so he says he’s James. They go to a party and afterward Cook realizes that Effy is seriously tilted. She doesn’t remember him, she doesn’t remember anything. She flips out hard and he slaps her, and she asks him to do it again (which makes the second time she’s asked a dude to hit her). Finally, she sees a bus and remembers Tony.

Effy throttles Cook, and then runs out into the street, screaming: “I’m not scared! I want to be scared! I want to be hurt! I want to remember! I’m not scared! I’m not scared! Come on! Come on!”

Cook dives across traffic and rescues her. She kisses him, remembers him, and asks him to take her to Freddie.

Freddie has packed up to leave. Cook spots his army-issue rucksack by the door and calls him out for being a coward.

Freddie: She broke my heart.

Cook: She broke my heart as well. You broke my heart. And I bet at some point you broke her heart. So what, are we just three losers screwing each other forever, or are we something better than that?

Effy wakes up back at the mental hospital with Freddie by her side. The first thing she says is, “I didn’t mean what I said to you.”

Freddie, who hasn’t had to shower for the entire fourth series, hushes her. “Shh. It’s OK. We’re together. We’ll be together.”

They fall asleep holding hands, and Effy’s mum wakes Freddie up. She tells Freddie she’ll take care of Effy. There’s a really lovely shot of her keeping her promise as Freddie walks away down the hall.

Freddie looks back, halfway down the hall. “I’ll see you at FanFiction.net,” he calls out.

Effy smiles. “Bring Cook,” she calls back.

And Freddie thinks he will – to burn with him, to shine.

EDIT: E4 has been so good to us about providing show screeners and interviews (we’ve got more interviews coming soon!), so we’re trying to respect their wishes not to post the last spoiler clip that’s been floating around the Internet today. Please be a sport and don’t post it in the comments, k? Thanks in advance for being awesome.

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