Thursday 10 February 2011

Skins US - Everyone’s gonna disappoint you, Cadie.

Skins US: 1x04 Cadie.

Cadie: I’ve got some new stuff going on, you know. New interests. I got some new friends.
Therapist: That’s nice to hear.
Cadie: I think I might be happy.
Therapist: Happy?
Cadie: Happier.
Therapist: This only works if you’re honest with me, right?
Cadie: Right.
Therapist: Right. Because it seems to be me that you’re exhibiting symptoms of depression, low self worth and anxiety.
Cadie: Those are all different things, right?
Happiness. All the adults in this episode seem to have a clear idea of how it looks and how it can be achieved. When Cadie’s mother tells her daughter to be happy, what she means it for her to be easier to handle and less of a bother – and the easiest way to get there, to make her daughter quiet and invisible, is so make her take drugs (“Cadie please remember you medication. Maybe take a little extra. I just want you as good and happy and stable as possible, okay?”). The therapists vary in their approach, but when they realize that Cadie needs more than little talking to, they rely on a new prescription too, instead of admitting that they don’t really know what is wrong with her, and how to fix it. Nobody really bothers to ask the question of why Cadie seems to infinitely sad and unhappy.
Cadie’s father has a mechanical understanding of how humans work – as a taxidermist, he fixes dead animals to look scared and suffering, and he has the basic same idea about how therapy works – he asks Cadie whether the doctor “fixed her”. While everybody else is telling her how she should feel, or how intense her emotions should be, or how much fun she should have, Cadie seems to be working on a fragile construct of what she thinks is going to make her happy. She has decorated her room with all the things that matter to her – her friends, Stanley – but the whole thing looks like it might come down any second. She clings to the idea that Stanley is her boyfriend – they’ve played pretend for the past few episodes, but now she actually uses him in front of the doctors as proof that she doing better, and the lines between reality and fiction blur.
Last week, and I really did feel bad about the review afterwards because I rarely ever complain this much about things that bother me about an episode, my biggest issue was that I felt like some scenes were missing to make the emotional journey of the characters comprehensible and my emotional involvement with what was happening to them greater. The question remains if I’d have noticed that they were missing if I hadn’t seen them in the original version – Jal’s episode before Jal in Chris’ episode, the “I care” that, for me, has always been the core moment in the relationship between Sid and Cassie. I can’t look at Skins US with completely new eyes. I don’t understand why Cadie is into Stanley at this point (and she genuinely is – just look at that little smile when he phones her and she sees his name on the display) in the story, except that maybe she’s built this alternative version of herself in her head in which she is normal and has a boyfriend, and she cast Stanley in this role because he is conveniently there.

Birds
Therapist #2: The birds. Why don’t you take me through your feelings.
Cadie: Pigeons. They travel in flocks so you never know what they’re gonna do, and they’re filthy and full of disease, and they’re not scared of me, they look at me.
Why birds? On the one hand, it’s a phobia, but there’s so much more to it. Cadie hears wings flapping whenever she feels threatened, or when something falls apart (there is this brilliant moment when she talks to Tea and she tells her about Stanley’s intentions, and suddenly there’s that noise again, threatening, impeding). There are birds all over Cadie’s house – the dead birds his father keeps, the canaries in their cages. The birds LOOK, while everybody else ignores her, doesn’t listen, interrupts her. Cadie’s father seems more invested in hunting and preparing them than in his own daughter. When the second therapist explains how she has to confront her fears, and then Cadie looks at the pigeon in its cage, and we see her through the bars as if she’s the one who’s trapped, not the bird, it’s like the bird reveals something about her that she is desperately trying to hide. “I’m having obsessive thoughts. […] I wanna stab you.” Instead of confronting the idea that Cadie is dealing with her frustration with the world and the carelessness of others by having a tangible phobia (so that something is wrong with her, obviously, not with everybody else), the therapist resorts to prescribing her more pills.

And then there’s Cadie, finally asking for what she wants, demanding what she needs, from her dad, and not conveniently backing off. She goes on the hunting trip because “She’s in need of guidance”. The whole scene is absurd, but it works – it’s the first absurd situation in Skins US that really works the same way absurd situations and characters do in the original version. Cadie is hanging from a tree, trying to have a conversation with her father, but he tells her to be quiet and then the beautiful forest turns into something threatening, the bird noises (no actual birds) rise up again. Instead of aiming for the rabbit, she has her dad in her cross hairs because the bird noises remind her of all the frustration and anger and aggression that’s just been piling up.

Drugs won’t change that.
Therapist #3: So your father’s dead?
Cadie: Yes
Therapist #3: Do you mind telling me how that happened?
Cadie: I guess I can. It’s kind of a crazy story. Well, my parents met at the circus. My dad was one of those trainers who taught bears how to ride unicycles, and my mom was the second fattest woman in the world. one day they were, you know, fooling around by the trapeze and I guess my mom was crushing my dad and he fell, and an elephant ended up, you know, stepping right on his head. Smashed his skull like a melon. My mom says that was the day I was conceived
Therapist #3: Cadie, I’m not so sure that’s true.
Cadie: But she slimmed down now, she’s probably the fourth or fifth fattest woman in the world.
Therapist #3: Cadie…
Cadie: So she looks better, but I still can’t really get my arms around her.
Therapist #3: Of course. What about friends?
Cadie: I have some. And a boyfriend.
Therapist #3: Does he make you happy?
Cadie: Yes.
Therapist #3: You take a lot of drugs, don’t you, Cadie?
Cadie: Yes, but I don’t think they’re working. I think I might need some more, stronger ones.
Therapist #3: Can I ask you something?
Cadie: Yeah.
Therapist #3: Have you ever tried not taking drugs?
Cadie: What?
Therapist #3: The drugs. Have you ever tried not taking them?
Cadie: Get outta here.
Therapist #3: Everyone’s gonna disappoint you, Cadie. They don’t mean to, but they will. Drugs won’t change that.
Cadie is a character who prefers telling stories, but like Cassie’s, they have a way of revealing the truth. Cadie can’t get her hands around her mother. Her mum isn’t actually the second fattest woman in the world, but she is distant, she isn’t available, and Cadie can’t connect with her. The idea of not taking drugs is completely ridiculous; after all, everybody in her life keeps telling her that she should take drugs. Her friends call her because she has drugs. Her mother prefers her sedated. Her therapists prescribe drugs because they have no other way of solving her issues. This therapist is remarkable because he introduces a new idea: that Cadie isn’t the problem. The world is, the people that let her down, and no amount of prescription drugs is going to change the world around her.
Cadie decides to go to the party without having taken any drugs, after her mum tells her that emotions aren’t real (they are symptoms of a disease and must be dealt with by taking drugs).
It goes horribly wrong. Without drugs, Cadie suddenly does realize what is real and what isn’t, and Stanley ignores her, and she gets the right kind of attention (after all those scenes in which she is told that she has to “pretend like she’s beautiful, someone telling her she is beautiful) from the worst kind of person – the sleazy, gross boyfriend of Michelle’s mum, who hunts her down like prey during the party. Chris (and Eura) tell her to take her top off to get Stanley’s attention (Chris not yet knowing that Stan isn’t actually Cadie’s boyfriend) – but when she does, once again, the only attention she gets is from Jimmy (“you don’t mind if an old guys gets in here, do you”). The turning point during the party comes when Tea tells Cadie, to her face, that Stanley only invited her for the drugs. “Stanley should treat you better than that. We should all be better.” – and it’s like Cadie’s fantasy falls apart that very moment, when someone else tells her the truth. She goes upstairs to be alone but Jimmy comes in, and she makes a decision – she gives him the epilepsy pills and starts making out with him (“You girls are just so much fun.” / “We can be if you treat us right.”), but for the first time since they met, Stanley notices. Stanley sees her drawing the curtains from downstairs, and there is a pigeon, on the windowsill, drawing attention somehow, and he runs upstairs and interrupts.
Stan: What the fuck are you doing?
Cadie: Having some fun. Not everything is about you, Stan.
Stan: So now you think getting groped by some perv is fun.
Cadie: Yeah. I’m fun, I’m a whole fuckload of fun, but what do you care?
Stan: I don’t know. This. This isn’t fun. This is crazy. This is all just completely insane. You just lose it. How can anyone respect that? You always just lose it.
Cadie: You don’t know.
Stan: And I care when you lose it.
Cadie: You don’t know anything.
Stan: I care.
Cadie’s decision is about so much more than just Stan: it’s about her own insecurity, about the fact that nobody ever recognizes that she is beautiful, about her careless everybody is with her – but then, Stan realizes that he DOES care. This also contrasts well with an earlier scene, when Michelle was changing in front of him but he didn’t turn away; here he immediately offers his shirt, realizing that Cadie needs more from him. For a bit, he is the kind of person that doesn’t spend his entire life in the shadow of his best friend. The “I care” is in a completely different context than in Cassie’s episode, but it works. I still don’t really understand why Cadie would have cared so much about Stanley before this episode though.

She walks away from the party in Stanley’s shirt, chasing away a flock of pigeons, goes home, tears down the fragile decoration in her room. She doesn’t make herself presentable for the producers, but her mother doesn’t even ask her what is wrong when she enters the room – she only cares about the impression Cadie would make, and how it would taint her own image.
Cadie’s mother: This is completely insane. There are people downstairs waiting to meet you. Myself and my father are organized, happy. Look at you, you look terrible. That is the one thing I ask of you. What did I tell you about staying on your meds? Don’t you wanna be happy?
Cadie: Mom. There’s too many birds out there. I can’t stand it.
Cadie’s mother: For god’s sake, Cadie, take your medication, now. And don’t even think coming downstairs unless you’re stable.
She takes a lot of medication, probably too much – and says, with those impossibly sad eyes – “See. I’m happy”, when she’s far from being content.


Tony and Tea

Tony takes some of Cadie’s blue pills and they “intensify” his emotions – which means that they build on pre-existing emotions, and in this case, Tony’s focus on Tea. He doesn’t even see Michelle for most of this episode, even though she is always right there. He gets jealous of Tea’s random girl (“This party is so heteronormative, and your friends are just like so gender-coersive.”, and he decides to confront her about what happened.
Tony: You felt something, don’t tell me you didn’t.
Tea: I felt something, oaky, but it doesn’t…
Tony: Tea, listen to me. You want this too, I know you do.
Tea: Just go away. Go away. I mean it.
Tony: I’m not walking away. This is different, and you know it too. Why don’t you give something a chance for once in your life?
Tea: Go away.
Tony: Okay, be lonely. [...] Hey Cades, how are you? Where’s Stan?
Cadie: Tony, were you doing something bad? It’s just, every time I see you you’re doing something bad.
Tony: Relax, Cades, it’s a party.
Cadie: You can’t keep doing whatever you want, you know. Things can’t always work out for you.
Tony: Listen Cadie, you let me worry about me, alright, you focus on your own problems. You got enough. Maybe start with that boyfriend of yours.
I totally get why Tony would be confused by his feelings for Tea. He explained that Michelle doesn’t really challenge him, and Tea does. The only other character who doesn’t take crap from him is Cadie (the webisode focuses on their relationship and is actually really good)  – Tony isn’t used to having someone stand up to him. What I don’t understand, and this goes back to not having seen the relevant scenes, is why Tea would feel anything for Tony. I thought her episode made it very clear that she is fascinated by him, but not at all sexually attracted, and if their storyline is going in a different direction now, I would have needed to see some scenes to see Tea’s position changing. She isn’t just conflicted about this because she is friends with Michelle. It would be hypocritical of me to criticize this storyline just because a self-identified lesbian character might decide that she needs to re-think her definition of her sexuality – I don’t consider this problematic for self-proclaimed straight characters either – but I need so see why Tea would be in love with Tony, just like I would have needed a scene to explain to me why Cadie cares about Stanley.

Random notes:

I love what Britne Oldford does with this character, and making Cadie a new character is one of the best decisions the writers for Skins US have made.

The music worked really well in this episode, especially the piano piece while Cadie was out in the woods, hunting. It didn’t distract from the actual scenes and most importantly, it fits her character and her perception of the world.

Cadie’s mother takes her scissors away, but Cadie has a bigger pair hidden away.

Cadie mother tells her to “laugh like she’s beautiful”, and that, after Cadie follows her advice on how to look and dress for the producers of her ridiculous pageant reunion, they will “think she’s beautiful” (this reminded me so much of the scene in Maxxie and Anwar, when Sid sees the picture Maxxie drew of Cassie and says, “you  made her look beautiful”, and Maxxie points out to him that Cassie IS beautiful). Like Stanley, nobody realizes that Cadie already is beautiful. The one person who tells her that she is pretty is Michelle’s mum’s skeevy boyfriend.

The way her mum went through her room that first time, almost ripping down her decoration, was such a great of showing how careless her family is with her (and, actually everybody else too).

BANANAS!

There are also two moments in this episode in which Cadie is closing her eyes and trying to find that quiet place that doesn’t have birds and people and threatening things, and the first time her mum just bursts into her room, the second time, Jimmy appears.

“And if you think you gonna pee your pants unless you have to say the word zombie five times, just do it.”

The tiny drug dealer that trades Cadie the epilepsy pills is probably my favourite minor character so far. “Are you riding home?” / “No. I’m flying home.” It’s also significant how comfortable Cadie seems to be in the company of a fellow collector of pills, in comparison to how isolated she feels at the party.

Cadie says “look up if you like me” when she sees Stan at the party, and he immediately turns around.

“You’re nice to talk to, you know. To a point, but, I don’t appreciate you beating off on my teddy, okay.”

There was a lot of stuff that was uncomfortable and JUST GROSS in this episode, but I think this was actually the worst. I don’t really understand it either, and it’s a pattern now – where Sid used to always have dirty clothes and some kind of food stuck to his face, with Stanley it’s just WAY TOO MUCH, especially since he seems to be a kinder, softer version of Mike Bailey’s Sid.

Another thing that really creeped me out in this episode: impossibly young parents. I understand that people in their late 30s could in theory have children that age, but it just weirds me out, and I want it to stop.

Cadie’s parents were well-acted though.

James Milo Newman seems perfectly comfortable in his role in this week’s episode webisode, but all of Tony’s scenes in this episode WERE TERRIBLY OFF, and considering how the Tea-Tony storyline is on the edge anyways, that’s really unfortunate. The lines themselves were a bit awkward too though (“you want this too, I know you do”? REALLY, SKINS, that’s the best you can do?)

For some reason, I thought it was more believable in the UK version that a kid like, say, Jal, would go to the same school as Chris, whereas here, it’s kind of hard to believe that the Campbell’s would send their daughter to the same school as Chris’ mum – and I was actually assuming that the school in this version of Skins was a public school, not that we’ve seen a lot of it yet.

In this week’s diary, Eura explains herself with the help of a teddy: Invisible. Trapped. Can you hear me? Gone. I’m not going to judge her character until I see where they are going with her.

Webisode

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you, by any chance, know what the name of the piano piece is called?

flame gun for the cute ones said...

Sadly, I don't, and I spent quite some time looking for it. It's none of the tracks listed on the official website, as far as I can tell. My theory is that it's some short piece Fat Segal wrote - it vaguely reminds me of some of the quieter piano pieces he contributed to Skins - but sadly, I haven't been able to find it yet!