Skins

If one day I found myself in a situation where the only way I could avoid taking a severe beating, being robbed and having my womenfolk raped off before my very eyes, was to put all my faith and hope into an illegal immigrant I had met a few scant hours previously because he was engaged in a chili eating competition with a notoriously sociopathic gangster who one of my crew knocked shit into while said gangster was tied up in a bondage dungeon, I don’t think I’d worry.
I would assume that I had fallen into some sort of dream and would fill my time looking around for people with alsatian’s heads or wondering if it was a lucid dream, if I had control over it, and if I could make sweet, sweet love with Emily (even though she is a lesbian) before waking.
If, however, it somehow transpired that it was not a dream, but that it was actually happening I would look around me.
I would take out my social compass.
And I would redraw my circle of friends.
One just does not need that shit in ones life.

Thomas arriving in the UK, yesterday

But enough of all that rhubarb, it did happen and is now canonical and there is no getting away from it. So Thomas was nice (I love that accent of his. I find it exciting, full of mystery and promise as he sweeps me up in his big strong arms…) and he will be back, fo’sho.

Is Effy the single coolest, most self-assured and sexually confident and voracious teen to ever have existed (apart from Sasha Grey, obv) or (and this is what I find myself erring towards) is she perhaps a wry, self-important, miserable, depleted cunt with a fucking iron bar up her arse? Who can say? Whatever the answer, she still seems to command the unerring respect, devotion and desire from all of her little mates, especially Pandora who seems to have added a little depth to her character. Which was nice. Freddie (hey, son. How comes you got a girls name? Eh? Eh?), however has still not even been taken out of the wrapper yet. He doesn’t even seem to balance out the weighting of the scenes because if he is there, he just merges into the background. Two theories, and two theories alone, present themselves.
1. That all of the cast have the same number of words spread across the series and he’s got a massive couple of episodes coming up so he has to stay schtum (although wouldn’t it be a bit odd to try and introduce us to him this far in? I feel like we know more about everyone else and it’s not cos he’s enigmatic. It’s cos he is superfluous.).
2. He was hired not for his acting skills, but for some other reason. Such as, oooh, I don’t know, his pant-wettingly good looks, maybe?
Which leads me quite nicely onto the subject of lesbians.

TV loves lesbians because they are girls, and girls are pretty therefore they look good on TV. No one but no one is ever upset by tribadism as it’s seen as either sweet or deeply sexy (whereas man on man action is more a mess of blood, shit and spunk, if done correctly.).
At least when performed by lesbians on TV. The lesbians on TV are the lesbians of male fantasy and, while I’m not saying that there are no attractive real-life lesbians, but more of them look like Norma from Shameless than Emily from Skins.

Some actual lesbians, yesterday

In case you missed the second episode of Skins, series 3, just watch this:

And this at the same time:

And that is essentially what you missed out on. Bit busy, wasn’t it?

Not sure how scared I’d be by Gareth from the office…

A dead hard drug dealer, yesterday

So series three is attempting to hit it’s stride, slightly clumsily, perhaps. This episode was dominated by Cook, played by the singer from Mirror!Mirror!, or Youves,  or whatever they are calling themselves this week. Cook takes over and monopolises the show completely which at first seems like a poorly scripted and contrived effort to get you to know him. It’s not. It’s seeing the party from the gang’s point of view, it’s getting you right in there, feeling slightly smothered, slightly intimidated and asking yrself, how much would I get on with this lad? Once you realise that this is the view, other things fall into place. Why are Effy and Pandora friends if Effy is so effortlessly cool? Why do the twins dress similarly and fade into the background (where the fuck did Emily [the secret lesbian] go after the row with Naomi?)? How are Cook, JJ, and Freddie (So far, so pointless, but I imagine he will develop later) friends when they all clash so violently? I think it is a little more complicated. I think every character is being viewed as the rest of the clique sees them. In their wee gang, Effy is so cool, but only to them. To others in the college she is just another girl. Pandora is a buffoon because she says simple things, if these filters we view them through weren’t there, they would most probably be more similar. It’s an exciting way of watching people and does it’s job of putting you in there with them.

So yeah. The first episode had an obvious homage to Back To The Future at the beginning and this one is, to my mind, a direct homage to Star Wars Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. Don’t believe me? Then you are a dickhead. Look at the structure and the denouement. Father figures letting them down, fragmenting of the group, poorly advised quests that the protagonist is unready for, the curses of being headstrong, and a downbeat ending (speaking of which, on Lowculture some one pointed out that the trailers for the first series were like the best party ever, and for the second, like the worst orgy ever. This time we already have extreme violence and degradation and we are only on episode two. Series four is going to be like a journey through hell and I for one can’t wait.), thusly, I rest my case.

When watching shows like this I always try and find which person I am most like. Initially I thought perhaps Cook or Freddie, but now I have realised that it is probably JJ. I have few people skills and am essentially just along for the ride. Cook reminds me scarily of an old housemate, as it goes…

It’s disappointing to think that as him, I will have my first kiss from a whore and probably never get to fuck Emily.

Be seeing you…

I fucking love Skins, me. It is aces and if you disagree then I feel sorry for you and your empty little life. You must look at Mark Rothko paintings and think them jolly landscapes.

A boy from Skins, yesterday

Does anyone else remember the advert brackets for the last series? The driving lesson ones? They were ace, especially that lad who said “Brecon Beacons. Been there once. Wouldn’t mind going back.” to his unimpressed girlfriend. On a lesser show, like, say, The Wire, Sopranos or 24, he would have been the highlight. And a WARNING - this series contains a creature who strolls past Nancy from Hollyoaks and settles down on a big soft sofa with Jemima Rooper and Keira Knightly. In my mind.

So here it is, bitchezzz, Skins series 3.
It bursts on to our screens with a scene taken directly from the opening of Back To The Future and it has a lot to live up to being as the second series was a form of art in places. We are introduced to three standard issue male characters, the cool one, the debauched one, and the autistic one. Every TV show seems to feature the kid from The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time, nowadays. I’m all for integration but I’ve got Rain Man on DVD if I want to watch the handicapped.

But let us dilly dally not. What we are really interested in is Emily and Katie (actually only one girl and a clever arrangement of mirrors. Like all twins.). I have not checked but there is nothing technically wrong with me feeling the way I do, but upon seeing them, especially Emily, I wanted to do myself physical harm, so beautiful are they. I will marry at least one of them.

My future wife, yesterday

There is an argument with Skins that it represents an unrealistic and unobtainable ideal for teenagers to aspire towards (like my feelings for Emily) and is therefore bad for them. Making them feel like losers if they are not living this life they can see on screen before them. I say: good. I say teenagers should be living this life, this is what it is about, this is the life that I aspired towards at that age. When you are invincible, you can taunt death, before life beats the living shit out of you and you become old and embittered like me, fearing fun and games, terrified of sex, and never ever touching drugs or drink or in fact anything that might make me enjoy myself. Best of luck to them, I say.

In short: Freddie is the new Tony. JJ is basically the new Sid except retarded and the lad in the Lyle And Scott jumper is the new one who died. Katie will be a bitch who we quite like, Effy is technically sub-zero, Emily is probably the most beautiful woman who ever lived and will probably shag Naomi Campbell before the series is out. Whether or not she will transpire to be a gay lady, I don’t know yet. I am excited

But the knowledge we must take away with us is that girls like stupid and McFly (Which, come to think of it was the second Back To The Future reference in the show. keep ‘em peeled for more.).
Be seeing you…

Just as a little addendum, I’ve been listening almost exclusively to Pomegranate by Astronautalis recently which is why the podcasts have dried up. I have been toying with the idea of just sticking it out as a podcast, but I think he’d get dicked off.