I was actually surprised by how disappointed I was

Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman, her forehead liberated, gave the performance of her life in the neglected Rabbit Hole. Michelle Williams surpassed herself (and Ryan Gosling) in Blue Valentine. Jennifer Lawrence broke your heart in Winter’s Bone as a girl trying so hard not to emote. When Portman wins tonight, it will be because she lost all that weight and suffered mightily. She’ll win because actors win awards when you see the acting, even though some of the greatest acting looks effortless. That’s why The Fighter's Bale (weight loss, accent) and Leo (accent, scenery-chewing) will win, too.

The Vulture: David Edelstein Live Blogs the Oscars

 Also, because I really didn't write about this movie at all; I had a discussion about Inception with a friend and was really impressed by the fact that he had a comprehensive list of all the logical flaws - when I asked him about it, he said "it was so frustrating that I had to take notes".

Insheeption
Tags: SOUTH
PARKStan Marsh,Mr. Mackey,more...

Academy Awards Prediction Game

Best Picture

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech

127 Hours

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter’s Bone

Winter's Bone was one of the most intense cinematic experiences I've had in a really long time, and it does probably win over some of the other movies here because it is the only one that I actually did see in the cinema. While I thought that the performances in The Social Network were genuinely good, the movie wasn't (this is also true for Black Swan, although it was a better movie over-all). The King's Speech would probably be a good candidate in case the Academy is looking for a compromise, and I wouldn't mind if True Grit won either (haven't seen The Fighter, 127 Hours or Toy Story 3). This is maybe also the right moment to mention that Inception didn't do anything for me, and mostly felt like a lot of wasted talent and potential.

Best Director

Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

David O’ Russell, The Fighter

Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech

David Fincher, The Social Network

Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit

The Social Network and Black Swan are probably going to win either of those categories. The King's Speech surprised me. I wouldn't mind the Coens winning.

Best Actor

Javier Bardem, Biutiful

Jeff Bridges, True Grit

Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

James Franco, 127 Hours

Is 127 Hours a movie that I should see? I haven't seen Biutiful. Jesse Eisenberg would actually deserve an Award for The Social Network, and I am just terribly biased against that movie. 

Best Actress

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

This is an impossible category. Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams. I left Winter's Bone thinking that this was the performance of the year, but Michelle Williams is stunning in Blue Valentine (and deserves all the awards for Wendy and Lucy), and Natalie Portman IS Black Swan. Haven't seen Rabbit Hole, and while I thought that The Kids Are All Right was a good movie, Annette Benings character was a bit too overwritten for my taste (also, I went into this movie with High Art in the back of my head which was not a very good starting point).

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale, The Fighter

John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone

Jeremy Renner, The Town

Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

With a bit of luck, this will be the one recognition Winter's Bone gets in a year that has so many grandiose movies. 

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, The Fighter

Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech

Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Haven't seen The Fighter or Animal Kingdom. It still disturbs me a little bit that Amy Adams used to be cousin Beth in one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I wouldn't mind Helena Bonham Carter winning for a surprisingly subtle performance in The King's Speech (and how was Hailee Steinfeld's character  only SUPPORTING? It wouldn't have made the Best Actress category any easier but this just disregards her role in the movie entirely)

Best Animated Feature Film

How to Train Your Dragon

Illusionist

Toy Story 3

Haven't seen any of those. Mary and Max was the Best Animated Feature Film I saw this year but it technically came out last year? 

Best Foreign Film

Mexico - Biutiful

Greece - Dogtooth

Denmark - In a Better World

Canada - Incendies

Algeria - Outside the law

Kynodontas is the only film I've seen on this list but it was intense and shocking and relevant and thought-provoking and the best movie I saw all year (and it was up against Winter's Bone!). 

Best Original Screenplay

Another Year

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech

Best Adapted Screenplay

127 Hours

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter’s Bone

There was this intense feeling in Winter's Bone that this was more like a Greek tragedy than anything else, and then I read Daniel Woodrell's novel and this is exactly the tone of it - something ancient, something that will be just as clear and close in 500 years or more.

Prediction

Personal Preference
Winner

Also, I am not actually taking the Academy Awards very seriously.  

• I found Anne Hathaways genuine enthusiasm adorable but the hosting this year wasn't that great. Along with the complete lack of surprises, it made for a boring show. 
•  Best moment: The Dance of the Brown Duck.
• I don't know why but I really started to resent the King's Speech. Immediately after watching it I thought it was a solid, enjoyable movie that did deserve recognition but compared to most of the movies it was up against, it was extremely conventional and harmless, and True Grit just stuck with me more. 
• Colin Firth, however, is fantastic.  
• I want to see an alternative version of the Awards in which the camera just stays on Helena Bonham Carter for the entire ceremony.
• I really can't see Michelle Williams lose. Upsetting. And she brought Busy Phillips! 
• Congratulations, Academy, Alice in Wonderland got more awards than Winter's Bone. 
• I like The West Wing but I never, ever want to hear Aaron Sorkin speak again.  
• What was up with Melissa Leo? 
• I wish someone gave Sandra Bullock  a really good movie to star in. 
• I guess Gwyneth Paltrow is singing now.
• Great year to be male and white. 
• Jeff Bridges presenting Best Actress was my favourite bit of the evening because it felt heartfelt. On the other hand it was really frustrating watching the Awards this year because it wasn't that much of a great year for movies, but there were some amazing female performances and I didn't feel like the Awards actually reflected that.
  

Skins - This is a depressing book about an anxious young man.

Skins 5x05: Nick.

I will never pick a favourite generation of Skins. Sometimes I think it’s the second because it was my introduction to the show and when someone puts me on the spot and really doesn’t give me any choice I’d probably still pick Naomi Campbell as my favourite character - but then I’ll see a first season episode and there is this immediate emotional reaction to it – it’s not even the actual episode that sparks this, but the opening credits. There is barely any other show where one image or one note of the theme song leads to a flashback of everything that I love about it, but Skins comes as a package. The cinematography, the music, everything about it is unique.
I couldn’t pick one generation, but at this point in the season it is hard not to admit that the third one had a stellar start. Even the characters that I thought would be difficult to like aren’t just interesting – I’m not just waiting to find out what is going to happen to them, or how they will redeem themselves – but I sincerely root for them, and this is in part because I understand them better this early into the season than I ever grasped Tony, Michelle or Katie. This season has also been incredible in portraying conflicts that don’t have an outside source, but are facilitated by the relationships between the characters, and making them believable even though some of the characters haven’t known each other that long and we have only just met them.

Fathers.

When the first clips for Nick’s episode came out, I thought that generation three had finally relied on something that made previous generations’ early episodes difficult to enjoy: the OTT villain character. Leon Levan seemed like the kind of character to follow Madison Twatter’s or Johnny White’s footsteps, the kind of inexplicably evil character that isn’t terrifyingly dangerous (even though he is usually perceived as such by the characters), but strangely comical in the eyes of the viewers. This disconnect between how the characters reacted to them and how the viewers were made to perceive them always bothered me, and it makes the first few episodes of the first and the third season hard to revisit (this also seemed to be an issue in Abbud’s episode – Abbud is terrified, but we know that his fear is caused by the drugs and don’t actually fear that something might happen to him).
The thing is: Leon Levan is nothing like this. There is an underlying sadness in this family that David Blood hints at – an absent mother that Nick, Matty and Leon never mention, like a blank spot in their past that is influencing how this family interacts. Leon is a failure as a life coach (one of his patients commit suicide after he tells him that “suicide is for quitters) and as a father, but there is also a hint that his failure to connect to his son in any other way than as a tyrannical, emotionless coach might be rooted in whatever happened to his wife. Nick and Matty cope differently with the situation. Nick has shaped himself in the image of his father, embracing his ideology, following his rules. Matty is breaking all the rules (and has to sign a contract containing a comprehensive list before being allowed back into the house), but there is a very strong connection between the brothers because they are basically both stuck in an almost unbearable situation, and nobody on the outside understands what they are dealing with every day (“You’re my big brother, we’ve had beefs, yeah, but fuck that shit. You said sorry, that’s all I needed. We move on. Agreed?”)

Leon: See that, Matty? That’s can-do attitude. Now, you follow these rules, do just as I said, you can be just like Nick.
Matty: We all need a role model, right.
Leon: Was that sarcasm?
Nick: Dad, chillax. Look at his face, it’s super sincere.
Leon: Yeah, it better be. Sign it.

Nick needs this connection with this brother because he can’t deal with the situation home otherwise; but this also means accepting that his brother is with the girl that he loves because he can actually share things with her that he can’t with Mini. He pretends like he wasn’t serious about Liv to Matty (“Me and her, it was a thing. A bit of fun. Nothing else. Yeah, she was into me, but I was just dealing with shit.”), and even though Matty already notices that his brother isn’t being honest, he insists that his relationship with Mini is improving (“Me and Mini, we are deeper than ever. Deep shit.”) – a lie that completely mirrors what Mini told Liv last episode in the kitchen.
Nick is all compromise. He compromises on playing a sport that he doesn’t really enjoy (always putting his game face on before going into the changing room). He compromises on the girl he loves because Mini is the girl he is supposed to be with and the girl he wants is with his brother.

Girfriends and the gang.

Mini claimed that she and Nick were finally really connecting, but they really aren’t. Nick just needs someone to distract him from the fact that he wants someone he can’t have, and Mini still can’t communicate her needs – and the result is, in this case, more comical than horrible as it was in Mini’s episode, but still completely dysfunctional. She doesn’t enjoy herself with Nick, and Nick knows that something is wrong.
It all looks perfect in theory, if he disregards his own emotions.

Nick: Isn’t this great? Two brothers, two best mates, the awesome foursome and the perfect storm.
Matty: Didn’t everyone die in the perfect storm?
Nick: Details, mate. The point is, we’re wet, and… dangerous.

He uses his power as a successful rugby player to get Matty accepted back into Roundview (“I can vouch for Matty, Sir. He won’t step out of line out of respect for me.”), and then he introduces Matty to what he considers “his guys” – even though he is, at best, only on the periphery of the group and neither the group itself or the viewers would necessarily associate him with them. He introduces Matty to everybody, but Matty is already more part of the group than Nick – Liv is his girlfriend, Franky knows him (“You two know each other?” / “We met once” – such a loaded statement, and Franky’s strange reoccurring laugh!), and the group reacts to Matty’s jokes (“After the first few blow jobs you get used to the taste and then it’s lucrative, really.”), while Nick’s statements are followed by an awkward silence. Nick desperately tries to pretend (he also copies the way Matty deals with Liv because it doesn’t, at all, come natural to him and Mini), but in the end, he walks away frustrated, knowing that he doesn’t fit in at all, that he doesn’t have a place in this circle while Matty does – and he has to compose himself, put on his game face, before he can face his team (“ever gonna let that smile falter?”).
His façade comes apart more and more in this episode. He can’t deal with Rider, making fun of both his brother and the girl he loves in the changing room (it’s probably notable that someone disrespecting Matty sets him off more than the remarks about Liv)

Both Mini and Nick have a narrative of success for themselves that doesn’t really reflect what they really want, and in both their episodes, the stories fall apart slowly. Nick is trying too hard to get the wrong things – and he is starting to get caught, too, because Mini finds him starting at Liv and Matty through the windows of the pub and slowly realizes that this isn’t going to go away just by ignoring it, and she gets increasingly frustrated in the course of this episode too, noticing all his little slip-ups about Liv.

The scene that gets its own picspam. 

Nick: What’s the chat?
Grace: We’re planning how we can find Alo a girlfriend.
Nick: Wicked. What the brief?
Franky: The brief?
Nick: Yeah. What are you after? Short time lover, desperate fuck, the love of your life? You gotta set your aim on your pray, know their weaknesses and hunt them down.
Rich: He’s not picky.
Alo: I am. A bit. Well, not really.
Nick: Well great. How about Franky?
Matty: Why not?
Nick: See, it makes sense. They’re the only two people here that are single, so why not the hook up. […] Then we’d all be couples. We could swing and shit.
Grace: Ew.

There is so much in this scene: for once, this is another episode that is very focused on one character, and still there is so much progression in all the other relationships. Nick is the outsider in this group, and he doesn’t realize that there is this unspoken rule that Franky isn’t considered a sexual being by anyone (really smooth move though to describe this whole process while his girlfriend is on his lap though), so his suggestion is a fauxpas (just look at Liv’s face!), and then Matty, Matty who Franky clearly likes, a lot, helps out Nick by pointing out that this isn’t that much of a ridiculous suggestion. Why not Franky? These characters don’t really know each other that well yet, and they really don’t know a lot about Franky, so most of their interactions are based on assumptions; and Matty points out that there absolutely no reason why Franky shouldn’t be thought of as a sexual being (“glorious fucking head-fuck thing”), and then there’s this wonderful hint of a smile in Franky’s face because Matty understands, and Matty lets her see herself in a different light (not that this is, at all, about Alo). This scene lasts for a couple of seconds and it’s so full of meaning and potential.

Mini and Liv

Liv leaves because she can’t bear it anymore, and Nick immediately runs after her – and this is the last straw for Mini.

Liv: Nick, let’s not do this.
Nick: Do what?
Liv: You know what.
Nick: I’m just, you know, checking that everything’s alright, that he’s…
Liv: What?
Nick: He smashed up our entire house. He goes crazy and I don’t want that to happen again. Not to you.
Liv: Good one, I see. You’re worried I might get hurt. That’s it. Nick, what is this? Do you have a problem with me seeing your brother?
Nick: I don’t have a problem. I just wonder what it means for us.
Liv: Us. Nick, there is no us, there never was.
Nick: Come on, we had good times.
Liv: We fucked. Twice. And I wasn’t even fucking you, I was fucking Mini.
Nick: I don’t know what that means.
Liv: No, of course you don’t. Nick, she knows about us, and she’s still with us. Don’t you think that’s fucked up?
Nick: We’re fine. We’re better than ever.
Liv: If that’s what you think then you two deserve each other.

Mini is pissed because she realizes that the thing between Nick and Liv isn’t over; ignoring it and pretending she didn’t know didn’t make it go away, so she decides to take revenge and dances with Rider (the best friend; the guy Liv slept with), and finally, Nick can’t compose himself anymore. He can’t pretend, and all the anger that has accumulated in the course of the episode comes out (it does after Rider insults Matty though).

Nick: What the fuck are you doing?
Mini: What am I doing? This is me, so this is my fault?
Nick: This isn’t cool. You’re out of order.
Mini: Why. Cause I danced with your best mate? […] Don’t suddenly act like you care.
Nick: I do.
Mini: If you care then why did you fuck my best friend? Fuck you. Fuck you, Nick.

“Sorrow found me when I was young”

Nick: Everything’s so fucking easy for you, isn’t it? I’ve worked my arse off, I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do and you just walk back in like nothing happened and fuck up my life again.
Matty: I’m not the one fucking you up, Nick.

This conversation takes place on a rugby field, the place Nick is supposed to feel most like himself; but he doesn’t, because even there, Matty is winning.

Nick goes home and finds his father ready to leave because one of his clients has committed suicide, and just like Leon didn’t recognize that Warren needed more and different help, he doesn’t see that Nick needs him (and this moment mirrors Liv’s with her mum, who also didn’t recognize what her daughter needed).

Nick: Dad, I need to talk to you.
Leon: The state of you. You got a game tomorrow, what the fuck are you playing at?
Nick: I’ve had a bad night.
Leon: You’ve had a bad night because you chose to have one or is this my fault too, is it?
Nick: Dad, I need…
Leon: Fuck’s sake Nick. Grow up.

Nick did everything right but he doesn’t get anything back in response, and he doesn’t get anything he wants, either, so he breaks all the rules in the contract. He smashes up the house with his dad’s golf club. Matty offers to take the blame, and Nick runs away to go on his very own trip – but where Liv had fun, and truly connected to someone, his just goes wrong and makes him feel even more terrible. He tries to talk to Liv but she tells him that “I don’t know what you need, but it’s not me.”, then he sleeps with a random woman after, for the first time in this episode, really admitting that he isn’t okay (“Are you alright? You look… fucked.” / “I am, yeah. Fucked, I mean, not alright.”) – but he does this while pretending to be his older brother, who he thinks never has to try to get what he wants.  He feels guilty and also kind of used by her (“I want to feel something, Matty”), and probably reminded of the fact that his mother is strangely missing from his life when he sees the pictures of her children.

Playgrounds.

Mini ended up on a playground in her own episode, pondering the meaning of friendship and love. Mini and Liv destroyed their own friendship as children were playing around them last week. In this episode, Nick, after a horrible night, is on the swings in a playground when Franky comes along; Franky, who always happens to just be there and is perceptive about other people because she cares about them.

Franky: You look like shit, you know.
Nick: Yeah. I think I managed to fuck just about everything up. You know that I’m… That people think I’m a dick. And sometimes, you know, I am. Sometimes I do things I know I shouldn’t and I do them anyway cause… Fuck. Why do I do them?
Franky: You’re not a complete dick.
Nick: Thanks.
Franky: So. What are you gonna do now, man? Well, I’ll leave you to it.

“I’m done. […]I can’t be happy in that house”

The next morning, Nick is done with pretending and with putting on his game face. Everything fake about him is gone; he’s lost everything he had, and he has to figure out what he really, actually wants, not what everybody else expects him to do.

Nick: I’m not playing.
Coach: I can see that.
Nick: Ever. I’m done. That’s it. And I need to sort some shit out and I’ll go crazy and I’ll end up fucked up and alone and I can’t be like that. And rugby, rugby isn’t helping. And actually, I hate it. And I hate the bullshit. The bullshit, the nonsense, and Rider, I fucking hate Rider. And I hate… I hate too much at the moment, coach, and I need to stop. But I don’t hate you, coach, so I wanted you to know.
Coach: Well, if that’s the way you feel.
Nick: It is, I’m sorry.
Coach: So. What are you gonna do about it?
Nick: I’m leaving. And I’ll find my brother and we’ll leave. I can’t, we can’t be with my dad anymore, coach.
Coach: You’re gonna run away, is that it?
Nick: I’m not running away.
Coach: Yes, you are. It’s all very well, seeing an injustice, Nick, that’s the easy part. What you do next is the hard part. It defines a man.
Nick: I can’t be happy in that house, coach.
Coach: You wanna be happy, is that it, yeah?
Nick: Yeah.
Coach: You know who this is? [shows him a picture of Nelson Mandela]
Nick: Yeah, of course, but…
Coach: He’s a happy man, respected. Everybody loves Madiba, he’s fair, and peaceful, and friendly. But when he was your age, he was a right angry fucker. Furious, yeah. He blew things up, fought and fought and fought against the shit he came up against. He never ran away. They had to lock the bastard away to try and stop him, and even then he fought.
Nick: I don’t know what you’re saying.
Coach: I’m saying I thought you were stronger than someone who runs, Nick. Stand up for yourself.
Nick: I am.
Coach: No you’re not. Just saying that… You’re a coward.
Nick: FUCK YOU, Coach.

Nick respects the coach (Skins has also been consistent in Nick’s admiration of fictional coach Taylor from FNL in the online content). The coach has replaced the father who never listens and whose help never goes beyond the simple one-liners that help promote his book – and the coach knows exactly how he can motivate Nick. Running away is the solution Matty had to his problems, but Nick isn’t Matty, and he has to find his own way of dealing with his issues.
Instead of running away, Nick goes home to his dad to confront him, and Matty is right there with him, supporting his brother.

Nick: I did it.
Leon: I don’t believe you.
Nick: I don’t care what you believe.
Leon: I see. You’re standing up for yourself. Is that it? He’s got to you. See, I know you Nick, and you wouldn’t have done shit if it wasn’t for him.
Nick: No. I wouldn’t have done shit if it wasn’t for you. None of this would have happened if you would have just… FUCK. Stop being a cunt.
Leon: So what, you’re ganging up on me, are you?
Nick: Yeah. Yes we are.

They burn all of his dad’s false advice outside, the things Nick has used to shape his life around. NEW BEGINNINGS, and there is a hint of the first honest and sincere smile on Nick’s face. 

Random notes:

SEAN TEALE! I never, ever thought I would grow to like Nick, but… THIS CAST!

Sebastian de Souza, mastering the art of the perfect "the fuck is this" expression since 2011.

“Success in life is only as important as the people you share it with.” – Nick’s path in this episode mirrored both Mini’s and Liv’s, but this line from the coach actually reminded me a bit of Rich – part of Nick’s frustration is that he can’t share his passion with anyone, and his success in rugby is meaningless because he doesn’t actually connect to his team mates (or to “the group”) and his dad never shows up at the games (“Will dad be there?” / “Yeah. I mean, I hope so, but he’s really busy, so. Yeah.”)

“We’re gonna gang-rape failure” – NEVER, EVER USE RAPE AS A METAPHOR FOR ANYTHING ELSE. Like Alo’s constant usage of “gay” as an insult, this is a realistic portrayal of how male teenagers communicate – and at least, this time Nick was called out for it.

Matty: I was thinking of getting a job, actually, something that lets me do my music.
Leon: Drop music, where’s the money in that?
Matty: There isn’t, that’s why I need a job.

It’s probably important to remember that Franky is a DJ. Skins produces a lot of content that should be considered canon online and I find it hard to keep up with this, but I think it was indicated that they might have had a conversation about music on twitter.

“Of course I can’t eat the chocolates”. MINI. I don’t really understand why I don’t hate her, but I really, really don’t.

Liv: Don’t.
Mini: What?
Liv: Whatever it is, just don’t.

I actually enjoyed that the episode did not explicitly deal with what happened between Mini and Liv. Mini seems keen on reconnecting with Liv (and, to be perfectly honest, this is kind of how I remember the drama in my circle of friends – people were angry at each other a day or so and then everything was forgotten) – but Liv KNOWS that whatever is wrong between them isn’t going to go away by ignoring it.

The scene in which Nick is looking through the window at Matty and Liv in the pub actually reminded me more of Mrs Moon, glaring at JJ (“I’ll call the police”) than Effy in 4x07, even though it was clearly meant as a reference to the latter)

I wasn’t happy with the coach using Nelson Mandela as some kind of metaphor for Nick’s issues but I found it less troubling the second time around, probably because I’m not completely convinced that the coach actually saw parallels between the struggles for civil rights and Nick’s struggles against his own inability to ask for what he needs and to know the difference between what he wants and what other people expect him to be; but only used this to motivate him into doing something about the horrible situation he is in, instead of running away which probably wouldn’t have gotten him very far. On the other hand, this is probably the right moment to point out that there are some situations in which running away is the ONLY thing to do, and it’s not cowardly at all, and I’m not completely convinced that the coach was really in the position to judge what Nick’s situation was. 

Reasons why Nick is going to get killed:

• Matty pointed out that everybody dies in The Perfect Storm.
• He wore the striped shirt.
• He ran away.
• That kind of looked like Freddie’s house, and they burned stuff.

There was an article on witch house in the current issue of Spex so I looked up some of the bands before the episode aired; and then, Salem and White Ring were featured in the episode. Zeitgeist is haunting me. (also, Doe Deer by Crystal Castles)

Here’s the trailer for the upcoming episodes. This is going to be one tough break between seasons, guys.

Episode Five. Hero Boyfriend Saves the Day.

john maus | do your best. ted hawkins | sorry you're sick. violent femmes featuring pj harvey | hitting the ground. mirah | la familia. various production | circle of sorrow. james blake | i only know (what i know). glasser | mirrorage. warpaint | undertow. tarmac | notre epoque. esben and the witch | marching song. mickey 3d | les gens raisonnables. alana johnston | say yes.

Did you hear...? Did you? Did you hear this? Did you hear? Did... Did you...?

Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein share their favourite music videos on youtube. 

"I picked Sleater-Kinney."

Portlandia is a little bit as if some of the amazingly good things about Parks and Recreation had kidnapped SNL with all their incredibly cool friends (Aubrey Plaza! Kyle MacLachlan! Corin Tucker! Aimee Mann!) and are now running havoc in it.

Skins US - Aren’t I allowed to not know what I’m doing?

Skins: 1x06 Abbud.

Something really strange happened about halfway through this episode: I was really unhappy about it – the tone, the lack of substance, the way the over-the-top characters (I never thought I’d say this but this episode kind of made me miss Tom, horrible, inappropriate, unredeemable Tom) didn’t work – but then, suddenly, something resonated. The core of this episode worked. The strained friendship between Tea and Abbud that suffers from conflicting emotions works, even though it was one of the things I enjoyed least in previous episodes. The completely new episodes of this show have always been stronger than the remakes, and Tea, Cadie and now Abbud all have this essential Skins magic where, among all the ridiculousness (and there is plenty in this episode), there is an emotionally true centre.
I find Ron Mustafaa’s Abbud far more easily likeable than Anwar, and he has a genuinely sweet side too that makes up for his constant perving on Tea, which is a well-reversed routine between the two that Tea doesn’t exactly seem to mind (“You don’t need to make excuses to me […] You got responses”). 

Abbud

Abbud is genuinely in love with his best friend, but he can’t tell anyone because he realizes that he won’t be taken seriously, both because he is never taken seriously and because everybody kind of loves Tea, just not the same way he does. When he tries to communicate to Chris that he isn’t just looking for someone to lose his virginity with, but something real and true, Chris doesn’t listen to him (“Find something that’s limpy and missing patches of fur. What you want is like an animal that’s be grazed by a car. Stunned and disoriented. Like a messed up rabbit.”) – love shouldn’t be a priority, losing his virginity is, even though Abbud seems to have different priorities (he also hasn’t packed a suitcase/backpack of condoms).
Abbud’s agenda is to tell Tea how he feels – and he does, by the water, when they are alone. This was probably my favourite scene of this episode because it starts out really sweet, with two characters that have previously mostly had scenes in which Abbud objectified his best friend, genuinely connecting as friends, frolicking by the water, feeling comfortable around each other.

Abbud: You wanna see what I was really looking forward to?
Tea: Yeah.
[he tries to kiss her]
Tea: Whoa whoa whoa.
Abbud: Shit.
Tea: Why did you do that?
Abbud: I thought we had had, I thought, we.
Tea: Look. What you want isn’t how I’m built. I’m sorry. Trust me, sometimes I wish things were different.
Abbud: I’m stupid, aren’t I.
Tea: Maybe a little. But I’m really stupid, so you’re in good company.

Abbud collects all his bravery but his timing is horrible, considering that Tea is trying to figure out how she feels about Tony and Betty and how all of this fits in with being gay. Her reaction is still lovely: she doesn’t pretend like it didn’t happen, and she still takes him seriously, and still doesn’t let it destroy their friendship. She doesn’t storm off, because he is important enough .

Tea

Tea is battling her own demons. She caught between Betty and Tony – the nice girl who wants to eat marshmallows by the bonfire, and the guy who is always casting her forlorn looks and trying to have a conversation (and when they do, he doesn’t know what to say, so he relies on something he is better at – and I am guessing they didn’t exactly talk much before ending up in that shed naked, which is interesting since the connection they have isn’t sexual at all, but in order to figure it out they would HAVE to talk, which they can’t). She sits with Betty so she doesn’t have to be with Tony and then she has sex with Tony so she doesn’t have to be with Betty.

Tea: Betty…
Betty: Come on.
Tea: We talked about this.
Betty: Why not?
Tea: Because you want something.
Betty: I… just wanna get to know you.
Tea: I don’t do relationships
Betty: Why not?
Tea: Because they suck.
Betty: You’re wrong.
Tea: Just wanna go to sleep, if that’s okay.
Betty: Whatever.
Tea: Relationships suck.

Tea is afraid of being in love with a girl (remind you of anyone?), so she goes to Tony, but the only way she knows to communicate (and Tony isn’t any different) is by having sex – and that doesn’t work either. She realizes that this isn’t right when Abbud walks in on them because she has just given him that speech about “not being built” for this, and sleeping with Tony hasn’t changed that (“Was it any better that time.” / “No, Tony. No.”).

And afterwards, the next morning, she goes to Abbud to explain. They are sitting high above the camp on a shaky platform, far removed from all the drama, overlooking the beautiful scenery.

Tea: I think I did it to feel bad, or something. To stop something else from happening. I’m scared of all this. Having a girl I could love. So I make it impossible.
Abbud: What don’t you get about being a lesbian? A key component is not hooking up with guys. Especially a guy like Tony. How could you do that to me?
Tea: I don’t know. We have some weird connection. Aren’t I allowed to not know what I’m doing?
Abbud: You’re a fake.
Tea: I’ll forgive that one, ‘bbud.
Abbud: This is bullshit. It’s not that you won’t sleep with guys, it’s just me, isn’t it.
Tea: Abbud, sit down.
Abbud: It’s just me, Tea.

Abbud is voicing some of the criticism Skins US has faced ever since the Tony-Tea thing started – but he is speaking out of personal frustration (and she used the “I’m not built for this” excuse before, to let him down easy), and Tea lets him even though he doesn’t have any right to tell her who she can or can’t sleep with, or to define her sexuality for her, or tell her that she is a “fake” because she doesn’t meet someone else’s standards. After Abbud survives his fall, their friendship is still intact.

Abbud: I’m sorry about what I said earlier.
Tea: I love you, ‘bbud.
Abbud: I love you too. A lot.
Tea: I think we can get through that.

There’s different kinds of love, and they are all complicated, and they are all worth holding on to. And hey, who would have thought that Abbud would teach us that lesson AND provide the best ending of any episode so far?

Random notes:

Worst / most incoherent review ever? POSSIBLY.

I’d seen Lily Loveless in Bedlam before watching this episode so some of the fluffy feelings might be due to that. SHE WAS REALLY GOOD IN IT, GUYS. Almost Carey Mulligan in Blink kinds of good (which will forever be my reference point for one-time guest stars).

“I’m allowed to slap yanks, too”

Daisy: Bears are actually really smart and fast. They can run 40 miles an hour and if you run, they think you’re food.
Abbud: I don’t want to be food.

Abbud: I wanted to bunk with Tea.
Chris: Abbud. We all want to bunk with Tea, but man parts ain’t on the menu. Sad and tragic as hell cause her body is built for the fast lane, but that ain’t the world we’re living in, son.

I think I’ve gotten over the fact that this isn’t, at all, Chris Miles. He is still wild and fun, but I really don’t see this spark in him that I loved so much about Joe Dempsie’s Chris. That’s okay though, it’s probably for the better that the characters have deviated enough now from the original that I can safely pick a different favourite.

Also, Tina and Chris? Er. Let’s see where this is going. Apparently Tina’s getting her very own episode.

Sandcastles and now marshmallows? Does Betty have a room decorated with unicorns and rainbows? She needs way more background and context.

Let’s just not talk about the horrific things done to and with animals in this episode. Or David’s “juices of puberty”. Or the puking (which, by the way, Glee did equally ridiculously in its episode this week, which was surprisingly entertaining).

“You finally got  a sexual response from something that’s actually living, how cool is that.”
No.
No.
Shudders.
Hides.

The woods looked suspiciously like Mr Campbell’s favourite hunting place. Funny how the “unidentified East Coast City” looks exactly like Canada, ISN’T IT.

“Nobody leaves until they mount my pole.”

Chris says, very quietly, after Dave’s on the ground: “did I do that?” – which, you know, was kind of lacking the ball breakers and the “nearly half eleven” swaying, but I take what I get.

I really love that Tea draws the people she cares about. She has such a hard time communicating how she feels about people (or figuring it out herself), but the way she draws them kind of talks for her. I ALSO WANT MORE MICHELLE AND TEA SCENES.

Tony. I hope Eura’s episode is coming up soon and gives him ANYTHING, really, to do that isn’t connected to Stanley’s virginity, Michelle or Tea.

I am assuming and HOPING that Skins US is going in a different direction with the relationships. There is no “you made her look beautiful” moment in this episode, and I really can’t see Stanley and Cadie (but there is surprisingly solid groundwork for Michelle and Stanley actually working, especially since Tony and Michelle are just a terrible train wreck that isn’t going anywhere). The scene where Stan is trying to get to the weed and Michelle is trying to talk to him really seemed like she’d rather be spending time with him than desperately trying to figure out what is wrong with Tony.

In this week's diary, Abbud passionately argues against pointless remakes with inexperienced actors of material that he, as an avid fan, kind of owns. One thing Skins US does well: meta.

Webisode
Heather Hogan interviewed Bryan Elsley.

There's an empty space inside my heart

Radiohead - Lotus Flower (directed by Garth Jennings)



Dancing around the pit / Just to see what it is / I can't kick the habit

You Don't Own My Soul

La Femme Nikita ultimately pushes the dilemma straight at the audience. Rather than leaving this discussion of US moral bankruptcy in global affairs a lingering resonance [...] that ‘surprises’ us with the obvious fact that corporations don’t care about human lives, and then ends limply there, Nikita has all the power and is left to make an actual choice within the debate: either she destroys Section (refusing to accepts its ruthless destruction, self-interest and moral bankruptcy, risking her life and visions of global security), or continues to let it run (accepting that such compromises are necessary for global security and securing her own status).
This is tougher than it may seem. It’s not simply the dilemma itself, but the positioning of an ongoing mainstream character within it: a character who still needs to hold audiences for another season or three. A fantasy character is forced make a decision that resonates directly with real-world politics – one that may conflict with the beliefs of many fans – and not a decision that’s merely abstracted or idealised. In front of a potentially polarised audience, Nikita essentially has to finally choose between Fox News and the PBS Newshour once and for all.

PopMatters: What 'La Femme Nikita' Has to Say about Egypt and Former President Hosni Mubarek

One of the reasons why I keep returning to La Femme Nikita even though it is a terribly uneven show that would have considerably profited from a Dollhouse-like economic storytelling is its complex ideology, or rather, the fact that it is impossible to pinpoint what the ideology of the show or the people behind it is. The characters are constantly changing, adapting and growing, the role that Section plays shifts in the course of the seasons (one of the most interesting questions of the show is whether Section is an instrument that can be used to serve any point on the scale between good and bad, or if it is inherently flawed and corrupts those who run it, regardless of their intentions), there is a multitude of different voices and while the sympathy of the viewer always tends to lie with Nikita herself, Nikita is constantly in flux too (as her relationships to other characters, most importantly Michael, change, as she collects more but hardly ever reliable information, or even as Section finally really turns into an early-stage Dollhouse with the ability to shape its agents like Actives). She doesn't actually finally choose between the two and the show doesn't provide a comfortable choice between the obvious good and the potentially more effective evil - and this is also what makes La Femme Nikita a far superior show to Nikita, which isn't interested in such complexity.

...

Security forces and militiamen backed by helicopters and warplanes besieged parts of Tripoli overnight, according to witnesses and news reports. Fighting was heavy at times, and the streets were thick with special forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi fighting alongside mercenaries. Roving the streets in trucks, they shot freely as planes dropped what witnesses described as “small bombs” and helicopters fired on protesters.
Hundreds of Qaddafi supporters took over the central Green Square in the capital after truckloads of militiamen arrived and opened fire on protesters late Monday night, scattering them. Residents said they now feared to leave their houses.

NY Times: Qaddafi’s Grip Falters as His Forces Take On Protesters, February 22, 2011

There were also reports of bystanders, including women and children, leaping to their deaths from high bridges as they tried to escape battle-hardened mercenaries from neighbouring countries like Chad.
Meanwhile, the government in Tripoli has shut down a range of media, including internet providers, social networking sites and the signals of western news channels. 

The Telegraph: Libya protests: 'foreign mercenaries using heavy weapons against demonstrators, February 18, 2011

The Globe and Mail: Gadhafi's influence on Africa (graphic)

These are two severely upsetting videos from Bahrain where the military shot peaceful protesters last week.

...

ALJAZEERA LIVESTREAM.

The Guardian: Libya in crisis - live updates
NY Times: Warplanes and Militia Besiege Protesters in Libyan Capital, February 21, 2011
Die Zeit: In Tripolis eskaliert die Gewalt, 21. Februar 2011

I've seen and done things I want to forget

PJ Harvey - The Words That Maketh Murder

what if I take my problems to the United Nations

Skins - This is real, right?

Skins 5x04: Liv.

Ed Hime wrote Emily, one of those episodes that picks you up and never really lets you catch your breath until it’s done, leaving a dazzling haze behind. Episodes of Skins trap the viewers in someone else’s head and perspective to a varying degree: I’d argue that there are some that are particularly good at following a character and putting them into a specific context (Sid’s first season episode, maybe last week’s Mini) and then there are some that build entire strange worlds within the 45-odd-minutes they last – and Liv, like Emily, or Cassie (either of the two, really), or JJ’s third season episode does just that.

Getting both of these characters so incredibly right seems like quite an accomplishment, since Emily and Liv couldn’t be more different, and apart from the self-contained intensity of both these episodes, they have nothing in common. Emily is a brilliantly constructed film noir with a big revelation at the end; Liv is a drug-fuelled adventure during the course of which two characters subtly connect, until, in the course of a mere two days, most of the central relationships of the show so far have radically changed.

What drives Liv Malone to never stand still? She’s still seeing Nick, even though she promised to herself that this wouldn’t happen again. She observes his little lies that he seems to have no problem with – telling Mini “love you too” on the phone right after sleeping with her best friend, and then visibly carrying the guilt home. Her mum only recognizes the surface – Liv looks “like a zombie”, she “isn’t fine, you are out of control”, and she doesn’t understand “why any of you do the things you do” – but she never even asks what is wrong, and what Liv’s motivations are, instead she is running away herself.

Telling lies, and pretending like something hasn’t happened, is a recurring theme in the episode. Mini still sticks to the strategy after seeing Nick and Liv at the party, and she has now decided that she wants a tabula rasa, so she invites everyone to Liv’s now empty (“I’m trusting you with the house”) apartment.

Mini: Did we fight?

Liv: You don’t remember

Mini: Oh my god, we did. Could we be friends again, just like forget the whole thing. I’m really sorry.

Liv: Yeah. I’d like that. Come in.

It’s the same thing she did to Nick in the previous episode, trying to undo an entire day just to preserve the status quo, unwilling to face the consequences.

Mini: This is really difficult. Okay. I’ve been a complete bitch to you all, some more than others, and I’m really sorry. It’s just, well, you are all so cool and alternative and when I’m with you I feel a bit like Nicola Roberts, she’s the plain one in Girls Aloud. Franky, you were right. We could all be awesome mates, and I want that now. So do Liv and Nick. So, we were wondering if you could find it in your hearts to give us a second chance? Right guys?

Nick: Yeah, right.

Franky: Well, I’m in. I mean, as long as everything is in the past.

Mini: Dead and buried.

Mini’s motivation behind this aren’t exactly clear: maybe she’s sure about her position again, now that she feels that her relationship with Nick is solid, so she can reclaim the friendships she lost as if nothing happened and include some new people who aren’t really a threat to her anyway. Maybe not everything that she seemed to gain from the moment with Franky in the previous episode was destroyed in the following scene. Some of her actions in the episode are aimed directly at Liv: showing off, almost, how her relationship with Nick has changed now that they are having sex, or perhaps making it clear to Liv that she never was a real threat. We don’t see any of this through her perspective, so it’s hard to make sense of her actions.

It’s also interesting to see how the episode manages to put Franky into situations in which she finds herself the observer, accidentally, of things that she shouldn’t be noticing. This has been a recurring pattern for her character, that she happens to observe something without actually meaning to, not out of some kind of detached curiosity (like Effy), but because she is genuinely interested in other people’s motivations and because she has a way of just being there at the right moment. She is left out of the group hug, just like Liv, and sees a look exchanged between her and Nick – and of course she was the one who saw Liv and Nick at the party, she was the one being told to forget she ever saw anything because she was the only witness of something Mini wanted to undo with make-believe.

Mini: You were wrong, by the way. He does love me.

Liv: Okay.

Mini: It’s reached a whole new level. It’s weird I used to be so hung up on sex, and now it’s just all the time. I have, like, carpet burns on my ears. So good.

Liv: I’m happy for you.

Mini: I don’t know why it bothered me so much. I don’t let anything get between me and Nick being together.

Liv: What’s going on here?

Mini: Everyone’s having such a good time, and it really would be a shame if you spoilt it.

This scene is Mini letting Liv know she knows exactly what happened. It’s a subtle threat should Liv ever decide to acknowledge what happened. Liv leaves, completely frustrated, to visit her sister in jail, but her sister tells her to do just that: to tell lies, to pretend like nothing happened.

Telling lies and pretending is one way of not dealing with a situation. Another is taking drugs and completely and deliberately leaving the troubling situation. When Matty and Liv meet at the bus station, both are running away from something, and the crystal they are given by the stranger – “you can’t run away forever” – provides them with a different way out than a bus would.

“Well, I hate this town too. Let’s get fucked, burn it to the ground, dance in the embers, and then you can get on your coach.”

All the rules they make in advance will be broken in the course of the episode. “no future, no names, no touching, this is not a hook-up. […] If I see you on the street tomorrow, I am gonna blank you, so don’t weep about it”. There is a story they are starting to tell, one in which neither of them is allowed to take the easy way out (they can’t just get away with stealing something, they need to be chased), a story with weird names – “you’re a bad influence” / “You’re not real, you’re like a Charles Dickens character named Teddy Sextramp” and costumes and a soundtrack (a Viennese waltz) and a heroic rescue from a horrible and creepy guy, and in-between, there’s hints of reality coming through, the things neither of them really can escape. Mini calls (“my husband”), Matty tells Liv that he got the watch from his brother but everything else he is wearing is stolen.

When Matty rescues Liv from the owner of the costume shop, they finally do have a reason to run, a better reason than a broken family or a friendship that is falling apart. Up to the point where they decide to steal the CCTV tape (tapes, and how they are used differently again and again in this episode!) and the money, they haven’t done everything wrong, but now they are on the run.

Out in the thunder, 

opens my eyes wide, 

There is something in my mind,

keeps me up at night,

Glasser: Apply

Liv’s “it’s starting to hurt” before she asks for more drugs isn’t just about her hand, hurting from punching the guy who tried to rape her; it’s the fear that reality might come flooding back if she doesn’t stay sedated, that she will be pulled back into a place she wants to escape. They have a reason now to quit the town and Liv takes it – “can we go together?”

Liv: Whatever we do. It’s you and me.

Matty: You and me. Always.

Liv: This is real. Right?

Matty: This is real.

“This is real”, while the world around them turns more and more surreal – a party with frightening costumes that don’t seem to scare them, the hallways, the sparse light (and Matty being the elusive, mysterious character, the furthest from “real” possible).

The next morning, everything is different. The worlds don’t go together well. Liv takes Matty to her apartment (the other halve lives very differently), and reality starts to take over. They find out each others names, and finally – after finding Mini in her bed with Nick – she realizes that Matty isn’t the random stranger who is unconnected from all her drama at all.

Nick: Matthew. What the fuck?

Matty: Nicholas.

Mini: Have I missed something?

Matty: Yeah. He’s my brother.

Liv: Shit. They’re brothers.

Nick: What are you doing here?

Matty: I’m leaving. We’re just leaving.

Nick: Liv, whatever he’s told you, don’t believe him. Stay away from him, he’s a psycho.

Matty: Why do you care? […] You’ve got to be shitting me. You and her?

The house of cards can only stand as long as nobody tells the truth; and Matty does, without realizing that he is destroying the precarious balance between Nick, Liv and Mini.

Matty: Whatever’s going on, I don’t care.

Liv: Yeah, well, I do.

Matty: I don’t care about him. It’s you and me.

Liv: I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. So get the fuck out of my house.

The illusion that Matty is safe because he isn’t connected to Mini or Nick or any of that drama is shattered, and their relationship only worked on the condition that the past doesn’t matter at all. She throws him out, she throws everybody else out, but then there’s someone left – again, the unlikeliest person, just like in the last episode, and she doesn’t just go away.

“Don’t care. Don’t care. Don’t care.”

Liv: Franky.

Franky: Where is everyone?

Liv: Party is over.

Franky: Oh.

Liv: I’ve told them to piss off. Can you just go too and leave me alone.

Franky: What’s going on with you and Mini?

Liv: What do you care? It’s between me and her. It’s got nothing to do with you.

Franky: All that hate and blame, it’s toxic.

Liv: Is it, or are you maybe just a bit too fucking sensitive.

Franky: I watched this earlier. I liked it.

For some reason, and maybe because she’s struggled so much in the past, Franky realizes the value of friendship more than other characters too, and she cares enough about others to point out when they are losing something valuable. Liv watches the tape that depicts why their friendship worked, and how easy it was before, and she tries to make herself not care that she is about to lose Mini – but she can’t.

And then, in the same moment, she finds out that she doesn’t have a real reason to run anymore either, because the guy at the store isn’t dead after all, and has been taken into custody.

“Our whole family has tried to keep it simple and we’re falling apart.”

Liv is surrounded by people who’ve run away and not taken responsibility for their actions – a sister in prison (“you’re never going to be me”), a father who left, a mother who invents hobbies for herself just so she doesn’t have to stay and deal with her children – and when her little sister blames her for leaving her at the cinema all night, she realizes that she can’t do the same. She can’t give up on her friendship with Mini, or Matty, or her family.

She fixes things her way. She gets Matty to stay by drinking a bottle of vodka and trusting him to care of her (“Stay. I can’t do this on my own”), and he does. He faces his own demons for her by going back to his family for her.

Liv: Do you remember how we became friends? I’d been crying all morning, you came over to me. Thought you were gonna give me a tissue, like everyone else who knew what happened. Instead you gave me these, in the middle of winter. I felt so cool with you. We were so much better than all those nice boys and girls, like we knew a secret they didn’t. But we don’t tell each other our secrets, do we. I owe you so much. Can I try and explain what happened.

Mini: Why would you do that?

Liv: So we’d have a chance. I’m so sorry, Mini.

Mini: Nick told me you drank a bottle of vodka to apologise to his brother. Funny, that of all the boys in town you ended up with him.

Liv: What can I do to make it okay. Just tell me, and I’ll do it. Anything.

Mini asks Liv to prove her love by drinking a whole bottle of vodka, and Liv does (while two children who look like younger copies play in the foreground, blissfully unburdened). But it’s not as simple as that, one gesture doesn’t suffice, and Mini is taking revenge for someone destroying her carefully constructed illusion of perfection. “I hope you die puking out your kidneys, bitch.” She goes home after the two longest days, but once again her mum doesn’t provide the comfort she needs.

Mrs Malone: Look at the state of you again.

Liv: It’s been horrible. Mini hates me; I don’t know what to do.

Mrs Malone: It’s all a party to you, isn’t it. I trusted you with my house, Liv.

Liv: I’m really sorry. How was the retreat?

Mrs Malone: Pointless. It’s all pointless, Liv. I do know all my hobbies are ridiculous. But I can’t just jet away like your dad, so what can I do. Maud’s out. Did you see the mess she left in the kitchen? She’s so angry. What do I do? Do I need to send her away somewhere?

Liv: Maud’s fine.

Mrs Malone: Throwing crockery is not fine. I will not have violence in this house, Olivia.

Liv: Maud didn’t throw it. I did.

Mrs Malone: Why would you do that?

Liv takes the blame for something she didn’t do, and then she goes to her sister in the cinema, finally finding a temporary safe place after all that horrible destruction, and they just both sink into their chairs and watch the movie.

Random notes:

Possibly the visually most beautiful episode ever. Also, I have a thing for bear suits (not in a weird way though – thank you, John Irving) so there was no way I wouldn’t like this episode. “CASUAL”.

I also immediately knew that nothing could go wrong when, instead of some cliché thing other shows would have played once the drugs started to work, Skins went with Simon and Garfunkel’s Wednesday Morning, 3 AM. “My life seems unreal, / My crime an illusion,

A scene badly written / In which I must play. / Yet I know as I gaze / At my young love beside me, / The morning is just a few hours away.”

There isn’t really much point in comparing the characters and yet I do it, again and again – and Laya Lewis does an incredible job living up to what Joe Dempsie and Jack O’Connell did with their very physical characters. The energy. I think I might come out of this season having about eight favourite characters, this is getting really ridiculous.

“Who told you it was okay to look at strangers the way you look at me?

THIS LINE. I don’t know why but this line stood out to me and then I didn’t find a place for it in the review for some reason. It also reveals a really interesting parallel between Franky and Matty, because Franky looks at relative strangers that way too, like she knows a truth about them that they haven’t realized yet.

There aren't that many people who could pull off Matty but Sebastian de Souza is doing an amazing job with someone so elusive and contradictory. I am particularly fond of his laugh after Liv's "syphilis" line, and the way he delivered "do we need money?", "I will break your fingers" and "I can handle it".

I kind of really love that Skins only needs one shot of a house or an apartment to show that all of these characters live with completely different economic backgrounds. Liv’s mum has a wide, open apartment; Mini lives in a damp, painfully cramped house on a street of similar houses.

“If I show up at the eternal circle without my own crystals I look like a fucking day-tripper.”

Alex Arnold’s delivery of some of Rich’s line is almost Daria-level dry: “So this is actually happening, is it? Brilliant” / “I don’t like hugs.”

Mini tells Nick to just smile and nod if he’s having trouble – which he, subconsciously, does right away TO HER.

Maud: If that’s really tobacco then why is it green?

Alo: Tobacco is green.

Maud: Then what is she smoking?

Alo: Heroin.

Franky: He’s kidding. It’s tobacco.

Liv’s little sister is now my favourite precocious sibling on Skins. FRAK YEAH.

Maud: You’re a crap shit.

Liv: Doesn’t sound right when you swear.

Maud: And it doesn’t sound right when you try to be cool. You’re not cool. And I am swearing now because you let me down, so deal with that, fuck tooth.

“Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree.” DISCUSS.

“It’s your wife. The twins have found the figurines and one of them is choking on a hobbit.”

“Which one?”

“It’s not Frodo, is it, he’s valuable?”

“Which kid, you idiot.”

The scene in which Franky really is the last one standing at the party but finally manages to knock herself out with the last spliff, only to get a “what a lightweight” from Grace, was classic Skins comedy.

Franky Fitzgerald, ghost of friendships past.

Mini’s “After you show me how sorry you are.” was a kind of brutal mirroring of Nick’s “show me then”. I predict a painful redemption for her in the course of the next episodes though.

In case you were suspecting that Matty and Nick might have a really, really terrible father (how scarring was Matty plea to Nick?): this looks like Leon Levan might be the worst parent on Skins EVER. Worse than the Cooks or the Miles. 

Bright Eyes - The People's Key / The Rural Alberta Advantage - Departing

Used to dream of time machines
Now it's been said we're post-everything
Approximate Sunlight

The People’s Key starts with a voice holding a lecture about humanity, progress, the bible and cross-dimensional travel. The first time that I ever heard Bright Eyes was a late-night radio broadcast of one their concerts (post Lifted – I have a recording of that concert and Connor Oberst’s introduction of Let’s Not Shit Ourselves, in 2002, apologizing for the President to a Viennese audience beforehand, feels just as strong to me now) – I was fifteen and I had never felt such a desire to understand every single word in a piece of music before. I bought Lifted a couple of weeks later and read the lyrics in the booklet as I listened to the songs, and they got stuck in my head – they repeated over and over again for months, the words and the way they were sung, angry and sad and demanding. Fevers and Mirrors and Lifted accompanied me through school, but by the time the next record was released, I had moved on. It was one of the magic instances were the development of a band coincided with my own, and then Bright Eyes parted to walk different paths. 

The People’s Key feels like a travel through past records. There are moments that recall Lifted (Shell Games specifically, with its allusions to teenage obsession with emotional torture, anger and madness, makes me think of the “weak from whiskey and pills in a Chicago hospital” line), and sometimes it reminds the audience of the fact that Connor once had a second band called The Desaparecidos with a seemingly more purposeful and specific anger (Jejune). In Approximate Sunlight, a narrator that never intervenes illuminates a gruesome scene of a shooting at a Quinceañera celebration, only to move on (“All I do is follow, just follow, just follow this hollow you around”).
The lyrics are, if anything, more complex than they were all those years ago – and there is a new layer of mysterious imagery, even though they are at their best when they manage to capture all the sadness that comes with being perceptive about the world and still find that spark of hope.

This whole life's a hallucination
You're not alone in anything
You're not alone in trying to be

Ladder Song

 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The city's love is cold and the city's love is hard
locks into our veins from the first September’s frost
January snap and the April winter thaw
rough and tumble summers underneath the midnight sun

Good Night

Only a couple of seconds into The Rural Alberta Advantage’s Departing, I felt like coming home. There is an inherent emotion in this music that resonates with me and it almost feels like a second heartbeat. Departing also feels like more of a second part to Hometowns – a departure, but it starts where the previous record ended.
The quiet genius of this record is the intricate connection between place and emotion, natural phenomena and people, that almost makes it seem like there is inevitability to the end of winter and the end of a relationship –

When the ice breaks,
When the hearts shake in the town and it marks the end of Winter,
The end of our love for now.
[…]
And I held you tight,
We were waiting for the breakup,
All the cracks in the ice.

The Breakup

Episode Four. We don't tell each other our secrets, do we?

HEALTH | triceratops (acid girls remix). benga | 26 basslines. crystal castles | baptism. m.i.a. | paper planes. janelle monáe | tightrope. massive attack | unfinished symphony. cage the elephant | shake me down. HEALTH | die slow.

Skins US - You would always be in bed if it weren’t for me.

Skins: 1x05 Stanley.

Stanley is going to fail his junior year if he doesn’t show up in class. He has made a profession of making up ridiculous fake excuses (“Our cat gave birth to kittens and Stanley is the only one who knows how to use the video camera.”) After failing to get up on time again the next morning, Stanley steals his father’s care and, with the help of Tea and Tony, makes it into class on time (“Did you do your homework too?” / “No.”). Tony decides that Stanley should pick up Michelle in his stolen ride and take her to Tony’s choir concert, where he makes out with Tabitha. Michelle storms out, starts a catfight with said Tabitha (who would have “blown him”, if it had been “artistic”) and then leaves angrily.

Stanley: Let’s go, Tony. You can fix it in the car.
Tony: Believe me, there is nothing I would love more than being in a contained space with that right now. But I have the finale, so why don’t you drive her home and comfort her.
Stanley: She’s your girlfriend.
Tony: Who you love.
Stanley: What the fuck are you doing?
Tony: I’m giving you a gift. Go open it.

This whole scene actually works differently in the context of Skins US because this version of Tony isn’t just manipulative, he doesn’t do this to bring chaos into a boring order or to make a point: he is entertaining the notion that someone else is a better match for him, but that someone is doing everything to avoid him. He’ll “go and fix it” (and it really is as easy as Stan makes it sound) later, when Tea once again rejects him, but at this point in the story he is perfectly comfortable with the idea that he might lose Michelle to someone else, so he might as well make a big scene.
Michelle, on the other hand, understands that she is in the car with Sid because Tony set them both up.

Stan: He told me to take you there so I did, and then he told me to take you home, so I did. This wasn’t some kind of big plan.
Michelle: Oh, sure it was. We don’t want to disappoint, do we.

Michelle recognizes that they are just Tony’s playthings, and she has a very clear idea of who he is; and still, she goes back to him later (her mum seems to be trapped in an even worse dysfunctional relationship, so she might be repeating patterns she learned at home).

Stanley almost makes the right decision in a couple of scenes in this episode, and every time something goes wrong. He almost makes it to school in time, but then he doesn’t. He almost talks to Cadie, but then, Tony calls and tells him to pick him up (Tony never asks for things, he demands them) from Tabitha’s. In the scene in the car, he goes from telling Tony that he isn’t going to follow him everywhere anymore to taking his advice on a short-cut, which gets him arrested for grand theft auto by the military police and leads his dad’s car to blow up.

Tony: You know what your problem is? You don’t appreciate everything I do for you.
Stanley: I’d be in bed right now if it wasn’t for you.
Tony: Yes. You would always be in bed if it weren’t for me.

Tony seems to intend to be broken up with Michelle and have that talk with Tea from a position that is less saturated with guilt, but Tea doesn’t comply, so Tony gets Michelle back – and takes the first meaningful and sweet moment Stanley has with Michelle away like it is completely meaningless.

Stanley: What was that for?
Michelle: For forgetting that you and Tony are different. You don’t think like he does, you’re nice.
Stanley: One of the nice guys. Awesome.

He only goes to Cadie when things with Michelle have failed. She is always the second-best option.

“I need someone to talk to. Can that be you?”

This was my favourite scene from this episode. It turns out that Cadie, swallowing all those pills at the end of her episode, has ended up in a clinic for troubled teens. Her room is decorated with painted trees, and the small, colourful dots on them are birds, recalling the scene in which she hunted with her dad – whatever she does, she can never escape those birds.

Stan: Nothing bad ever happens to Tony. He’s got the cheat codes to life everybody else can’t have. Chelle’s a disaster, Tea’s getting weirder and weirder, and you’re in here, my parents hate each other, and I’ll probably be sent to juvie.
Cadie: You should plead insanity and join me in here.
Stanley: I’m really sorry. About everything.
Cadie: Sorry for what?
Stanley: If I was the reason that…
Cadie: You think I’m in here because of you? Think pretty highly of yourself, huh.
Stanley: I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, if you’re thinking about me or whatever, then I’m sorry.
Cadie: I’m sure plenty of girls would kill themselves over you, but I don’t… think about you like that, sorry.
Stanley: Oh, well. That’s good. I guess.
Cadie: You guess?

I love this conversation. One of the reasons why Cassie isn’t my favourite character is that it always seemed like Sid was, somehow, the centre of all her issues, when she was already troubled before. He made things more complicated, but he wasn’t exactly the reason, more like just another trigger. I love the fact that Cadie tells Stanley that he wasn’t the reason for her suicide attempt, and that her feelings for him – whatever they might be – are more complex. This is what Marks tells him later, that there is almost never just one reason why people are the way they are.

Stanley: Mrs Campbell, how did she, how did she get here?
Mrs Campbell: Well. You get a call from the school in about the third grade, it’s a teacher and they say, we love Cadie, she’s so creative, we just got a few concerns about her behaviour, and then suddenly she’s in the system. And from then on it’s not if she sees them, it’s when, and it’s not if she takes something, it’s what and how much, and years go by and you think, she was just in third grade.
Stanley: I think my parents got that call from the school about me. My dad just yelled at me a lot and told me to be less weird.
Mrs Campbell: Good dad.

Is this the same Mrs Campbell we met in Cadie’s episode, a woman who has seen her daughter struggle all her life and never felt competent to really support her (not that much unlike Anthea’s “beautiful bomb” speech?) Maybe she has changed now that Cadie has demanded to be taken seriously in such a brutal way, but this doesn’t seem like the same character from the last episode, the woman who told Cadie to maybe take some more pills so she could be more presentable. She still doesn’t understand a thing though if she really believes that Mark’s approach is the right one, or maybe she is blaming herself for allowing the doctors to always take the easy way out with all the pills.

“Mr Lucerne, I’ve been doing this for a while and parents like you never cease to amaze me.”

Mark insisted on letting Stanley’s grand theft auto charge stand, and he increasingly disappointed and enraged his wife in the course of this episode. It’s hard to interpret the ending of the episode – Stanley probably embraces the “sensibility” his dad demands of him (a sensibility that is somehow symbolized by the fact that he decided to buy a reasonable car when he was in college and is now riding a bike in the most ridiculous outfit imaginable), while his dad has to admit that his aggressive approach to everything has cost him his marriage.

Mark: Listen. You can drive yourself crazy trying to find a reason for why people do what they do, but it’s almost never just one reason. Marriage. Relationships. They’re complicated. You shouldn’t blame yourself.
Stanley: I don’t blame myself, I blame you.
Mark: One day, down the road, you’ll find…
Stanley: Shut up. Call her.
Mark: It’s no use, she won’t answer.
Stanley: She’ll answer mine. Fix it, dad. Fix it. Fix this, dad. Fix it. Fix this, dad, okay. Just fix this.

Mark might be a bastard, as the judge says (even though “knob” is and will always be the best way to describe the father of a Sid or Stanley), but he is also the parent that stays around – Stanley is afraid that he has left too, when he finds the living room empty, but his response is “No, never”, and the two of them finally do get a moment in which they understand each other. There’s a sense of awe in Mark’s voice when he retells Stanley’s adventures, and he admits that he was wrong when he insisted that Stanley should be charged – and Stanley admits that the sensible, ugly car his dad chose instead of his dream-car, the Corvette, actually was a good car and he just “drove it wrong”. Mark says “I should have bought the Corvette” at the end of the episode – probably admitting that it is sometimes better to be adventurous than to be sensible, because his own close-mindedness and stubbornness has driven Stanley’s mum away.

Stanley: I hate to say it but I’m late for school.
Mark: Well, I suppose I’ll have to write a letter. You’re the expert, what should it say?
Stanley: How about: Stanley was late for class this morning cause he was required to appear in federal court facing charges for grand theft auto.
Mark: That’s good. He was recently in a high speed car chase with a police officer into a secure military base.
Stanley: He might have escaped if the stolen vehicle had not caught fire and exploded.
Mark: Additionally, his mom left this morning because Stan’s dad is a pigheaded dildo. Regrettably, Mark Lucerne.
Stanley: It’s not piece-of-shit dad. Well, it is now, but it wasn’t. I just drove it wrong.
Mark: I should have bought the Corvette.

Random notes:

This is probably the right moment to mention that Mark Jenkins is one of my favourite minor characters of the first generation, and Mark Lucerne doesn’t come close. I also didn’t understand the ending, at all. HIT ME WITH YOUR INTERPRETATIONS, Y’ALL.

His car was a really nice homage to Mark Jenkins’ though, even if it is now no longer part of the story. RIP.

“Once more and he’s toast, I’m afraid.”

Mark Lucerne: You know who retakes junior year, Stan? You know who? Methheads. Morons. People who can’t read. Kids in water sport accidents. Heroes with set-backs. Not lazy little shits who can’t get out of bed in the morning.

Mr Weir: You know who used to cut class? Jimi Hendrix. You know what happened to him? He died! Choking on his own vomit.

“It’s just hard to take you seriously when you look like you’re from the future.”

Daisy: He’s just gonna put you to sleep. Like a cat.

Mark seems legitimately concerned that his son might be in the first stages of serial-killerdom though (“You don’t… I don’t know, get off on stitching small animals together, do you?”). TEDDY BEARS SEEM TO DO THE TRICK THOUGH.

Michelle: Bye, mom! I’ll be out late with dangerous men. Probably do a gang bang, then maybe a pregnancy pact with the girls.
Mrs Richardson: Sounds fun! Text me later!

“I MAKE OUT WITH MY DOG. NO BIGGY.”

“Michelle would never, never blow a horse.” – I was too scared to google “blowing a horse” to find out what Tabitha said exactly though.

Daisy: Stan, we came to take your mind off it.
Tea: We wanted to do something for you.
Stan: I appreciate the thought girls, but I just not have the energy for a threesome.
Daisy: Damn
Tea: Crap.
Daisy: Why don’t we take you to a party instead?
Tea: Oh, come on. Chris planned it for you. Drug-fuelled benders are his way of expressing his feelings.

FREE STANLEY!

Tea is building sandcastles with Betty (“That’s a really shitty sandcastle. Doesn’t even have a flag.”) instead of dealing with Tony’s puppy-eyed sadness.

Defendant: You could probably sell locks of your hair to guys who miss their girlfriends and stuff.
Stanley: Please stop.
Defendant: Can I touch it?

HE REALLY COULD. And I wish he would because that would make Stanley-Michelle scenes less weird. I am not exactly comfortably with their eerily similar hairstyles.

Webisode
Diary (Cadie's)

Frustrated rambling, etc.

So here it is: I really liked Tea’s episode. I enjoyed the first part of Cadie’s, up to the point at the party when it fell apart. While Chris disappointed me, it was mostly because of the things that were missing, things that I might have not noticed had I not seen the original episode. Stanley is the first episode that left me, for the most part, kind of bored. The episode might have worked if Stanley was a character I could unabashedly root for: someone who, because of bad decisions or general passivity, always ends up in horrible situations and hasn’t managed to surround himself with reliable friends. Sadly, he’s not. He’s not the clueless, slightly pathetic guy who can’t see anything through the literal mess in his life and the figurative one in his head, he’s the guy who, while being cheered on by his friends, asks the girl with a known substance abuse problem for drugs, the guy who jerks off on the bed of the girl he claims to love. I’ve never been a fan of Sid, but at least his shortcomings weren’t too big for redemption. I can’t really stand this constant “look how gross Stanley is” (he isn’t just gross though; he’s disrespectful, way out of line, and he isn’t the only one – I understand what the routine between Abbud and Tea is supposed to be, but it makes it impossible, at least for me, to like Abbud, because he constantly objectifies his best friend) that is always immediately followed by an “oh, but look how endearingly hapless and adorably clueless he is” because I don’t buy it, even though Daniel Flaherty makes him softer and less abrasive than Sid ever was. The really unfortunate thing is that this doesn’t seem intentional – I think that I am actually supposed to root for Stanley, and this is the result of a kind of over-the-top humour that doesn’t really work and sabotages the characters. Maybe I should just get over it already, and give these scenes the same benefit I extend to other episodes in which characters who are not at the centre of the episode seem slightly off, but it’s really getting frustrating now. The scene with Stanley and Michelle at the beach was nice, and friendly, and would indicate that they might actually work as a couple (more than Cadie and Stanley). I really did like the tiny bit in the car – “Is this dress too slutty for a private school?” / “No. Just slutty enough I’d say.” – because they seem to be on the same wavelength and genuinely make each other laugh. But then I remember the TEDDY BEAR AND ALL THE FLUFFY FEELINGS GO AWAY. I need some Topher-tech to remove that from my permanent memory.