Skins - I was good in there.

Skins: 7x01 Fire, Part 1.

Who is Effy Stonem? She stopped speaking for a year and the first words we ever heard her say were a riddle. Her brother almost died in front of her and struggle to get everything back he had lost. Someone she knew died suddenly and unexpectedly. Her family fell apart, and despite everything you’d expect, it hurt her so much that it was the one unique fact she shared on her first day in Roundview, the burden of carrying that secret for her mother. She had a mental breakdown and tried to commit suicide, and then Freddie was killed by the therapist who was also psychologically abusing her. Her mother described her as a beautiful bomb, JJ as fit and mysterious, and she barely made it out of Roundview and Bristol alive. 

To me, Effy’s most striking feature has always been how observant she was – an interest in analysing other people, figuring them out, reading them, and occasionally meddling in their affairs when she felt like it, but never quite using that incredible talent on herself. There are rare moments throughout the show when Effy speaks about herself, reveals something about how she feels, what drives her, but they don’t happen often. She is more affected by her parents’ breaking up (“They fuck you up”). In Pandora (one of my favourites, always), she is called out for not being a very good friend. And then there’s “when do I ever get to be upset? When do I ever get to be anyone but me?” – a difficult sentence to parse, considering how little we actually do know about her, except maybe it’s impossible to never appear to genuinely want anything, to remain distant and seemingly unaffected all the time (but then it’s when she’s closest to someone when she starts losing it completely, so who knows). 

We don’t know what happen in the time between, how Effy ended up working at a hedge fund in the City. It’s more interesting to try and figure out what drives her, how being so good at reading situations and people translates to the kind of ambition she shows now. Like before, she never explicitly discusses her motivation or her feelings with anyone else, she remains difficult to read, and her actions are everything we get in terms of information. Effy makes it a point not to be the assistant whose name nobody knows; she goes the extra mile, she’s focused on this (the collages she used to have on her walls, the one Foster replaced with a deadly structure of control, is now spread sheets and diagrams), she understands it enough to be able to identify mistakes and to successfully meet a client without being asked to. In the evenings (or rather, nights) she goes back home to the flat she shares with Naomi, usually finds her in the midst of a party, drunk and stoned, goes to her room, works some more, and then sneaks out to secretly dance the night away, sober but drunk on the music and the light and the people the way she used to. She doesn’t seem to sleep, ever, and she’s still absolutely awake and aware the next morning, more than anyone else. 

The contrast to Naomi is interesting, because in a way, they started out the same: sometimes in their first few weeks together, it seemed like it was a competition between them, figuring each other out, reading each other, calling each other out on their feelings. Naomi knew about Effy and Freddie before anyone else; Effy figured out Emily and Naomi way before everybody else. Significantly, during the weeks that Naomi’s relationship with Emily was at its worst, she sought out Effy to talk to her about it, not anyone else. The difference between them was that Naomi’s power of observation had a focus, an outlet: she was an explicitly political character, someone with articulated grievances about the state of the world – Effy used her ability to read people for personal relationships, first for her brother’s circle of friends, then for her own, but with Naomi it always seemed connected to her hatred of injustice (again, the thing she chose to share on their first day of college). Now, years later, things have changed: Effy chose to apply this ability to something specific, and is successfully and quickly climbing the ladder, while Naomi seems to have completely lost her footing, stuck in a city she hates because her girlfriend left for her career and she hasn’t found her place yet, without anything to focus on but still as angry and frustrated as she used to be.  

We don’t know what happened exactly to derail Naomi so entirely either, but it’s not out of nowhere. One of my favourite moments between her and Emily was in Naomi’s third season episode, when Emily talked Naomi into running for student president – insisting that she could do anything she put her mind to, making the ridiculous flyers “in anticipation”, pushing her to do something she knew Naomi would excel at and cared about profoundly, even if meant all the pain of realizing that everyone else didn’t care as much as she did. I like this moment so much because it kind of got lost in the misery of season four – suddenly all Emily wanted was to be with Naomi, she never really voiced any plans of the future beyond that, and when Naomi tried to build her own future, something she wanted for herself – going to university straight away – she had to keep it a secret. Naomi’s struggle with that relationship, with how she felt about Emily (regardless of how I feel about “I think I was twelve” retroactively insisting on changing everything that happened in season three, suddenly it’s no longer a falling-in-love story, etc.), was about figuring out how she could still be herself in a relationship with someone else (“it’s not as simple as that, being with someone”). This is also what that gorgeous Rilke quote is about – love as a mutual consent that “robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development”, but, when it succeeds, allowing both to “succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky”. Whatever happened to Naomi to leave her so entirely lost, Emily has found her path. She’s in New York, and she’s no longer telling Naomi that she can achieve anything she puts her mind to, but blames her for being stoned, again, and for being too busy entertaining guests to talk to her girlfriend. And of course Naomi would see the fault in everyone but herself – it’s the city that is draining her, that made Emily leave, and the people Effy associates are disgusting (they are disgusting, but part of growing up is realizing that the moral outrage alone just doesn’t cut it anymore, doesn’t lead anywhere) – but still, Effy is probably the one who ends up paying the rent and who re-stocks the liquid cabinet, the person who paid for that steak in the fridge. That’s the impossible dichotomy: being outraged about the immorality of a particular business, about someone just losing ₤1,000 on a gambling table while you don’t have enough money to buy food or pay for the rent, but still relying on someone else to do the work for you. We don’t know what drives Effy – if she is still running, in a way, from what happened to her, by focusing on this, if she just enjoys being so good at something, getting the extra attention, rising from assistant to trader in one swift move, to star trader via insider trading.

It’s bitter and terrible to see Naomi like this, so without orientation that a random career in stand-up seems feasible (and ends in a hilarious catastrophe, not unlike her political career in Roundview ended, except the stakes now are much higher). But on the other hand, the other thing about Skins is still true – there’s never a promise of a light at the end of the tunnel, of things just turning out well, because that would be lies, but the only way to survive and to face how randomly cruel the world can sometimes be is to surround yourself with people who can share the burden. Effy rises through the ranks, and entertains people that she would have seen through and ridiculed years ago (the other Ravenclaw danger – Naomi’s suffering from the more severe one, having nothing to put all that energy into - focusing so much you end up losing sight of the greater picture), meanwhile Naomi drops hints of medical appointments, inexplicable pains, and ends up facing her diagnosis entirely alone, because her only friend in London is otherwise occupied, and her girlfriend is chasing her career in New York, hours away. Effy is so caught up in it she doesn’t even realize what she’s doing, really – her break at the firm came through something that was illegal, getting information from Dominic (and this is another thing about growing up, the rules of the world colliding with ideas of friendship), she is surrounding herself with arrogant people who only care about money and laugh at her friends (“money is war”, says her boss, and “he needs to think he’s winning” applies to all of them as well – everyone thinks they’re winning, until they’re not, until reality catches up with them and the house of cards falls down). 

And then there are some things you can never outrun. Like thinking that London is the problem, when the place itself is just a scapegoat for whatever went wrong with Naomi since she left school, like thinking that whatever sleepless Effy is running from will never catch up with her – Naomi goes up to the roof of their ridiculously expansive apartment and turns up the music in defiance of the city she hates so much because the only certain thing in her life is no longer here, and when Effy follows her, she can just whisper the truth – she has cancer. It’s not really about winning, it’s about surviving. 

Random notes: 

This is still the prettiest show. 

For the record: I wasn’t entirely happy, but the episode immediately had me thinking, and sometimes that’s enough? I never thought I’d get the chance to write about these characters again. 

That being said, “not actually sure how this part works, let’s turn up the music and do close-ups of faces and gestures” isn’t exactly elegant writing, neither is giving the impression that the complexities of finance can be explained with chalk, on a rooftop, or that “check out the following algorithm” is something anyone would ever say, ever. Like, one of the biggest issues with finance, and the financial crisis, is the sheer interpretational elusiveness of it, the fact that calling out the bullshit seems impossible because of the complexity of it all, so this kind of writing makes me a bit angry. It’s not a good way to make an important point. 

It's just ridiculous that the most significant relationships of Effy's life are entirely missing - Tony and Pandora. And Katie would have deserved a place here as well. 

I like the implication that Effy totally knows how to deal with Dominic because of JJ – and she knows to cherish his particular knowledge, and is eager to share it. 

“You’re the only one who understands Excel.”

"I've been on my own all day"

Lily Loveless is so good at physical comedy. As hard as it was to see Naomi sort of reduced to this for most of the episode, she just really excels at that kind of comedy. 

I think it’s pointless to argue out-of-character here, and if anything, Naomi’s path is very much in-character – “it’s almost half eleven”, and all that; losing her path without Emily, drifting off – she’s always sort of derived her ambition from Emily, that’s part of the underlying problem of their relationship. But it’s still incredibly sad to see someone as driven and idealistic as Naomi so completely derailed. Also, fucking cancer. I don’t care if it’s realistic or not (it is, it always happens out of nowhere, especially with young people), but that’s an example of where I wish fiction didn’t reflect reality.

The acting in the roof top scene was incredible though. You could tell that Naomi remembered the last time. And Effy’s inability to comfort her – the isolation of it – was incredibly well acted and portrayed. 

I considered writing the review after the next episode airs because my ultimate judgement depends so much on the resolution – but let’s just say that I wouldn’t appreciate a “having cancer teaches you about the value of life” storyline, because sickness as opportunity is such a fucked-up and flawed concept.