4.01 Thomas

[em_sh]

 My thoughts:

On first viewing, meh. It was alright. On second viewing it was much better, but not amazing.

Most importantly: Did not like the change to the jingle. Right, now that one is out the way, the rest:

Comments

[lovely_noise]

I think you've nailed what I kept taking ages to get at. The way Naomi dealt with what had happened was done well, but the fact that she was involved at all? Pretty inexplicable to me.

I am hesitating on judging Emily though, since we're going on a whole three lines or something, but it was still a bit more than I was expecting. I mean, ballsy Emily is good, snide Emily is not.

I'm pretty sure Katie will be fine, she was all over the trailers for the full series. And I liked the manner of Effy's return but I never really expected to like anything she actually did - she always was the least relatable.

Fitch family is making a welcome return, and they seem to have come straight from the pages of my favourite fics. I have a feeling those bits may be the best bits of the whole thing.

[em_sh]

Yeah, I'd like to think that they'll explain the reason she was involved other than 'I needed the money' but it's Skins, and I'm not holding out much hope!

You're right, Emily did only have a few lines, so best to not hold back a bit, but if they go too far down this direction, then essentially she becomes who Katie was in S3 without the insecurity, and 1. I don't understand where that would have come from and 2. Do not want thanks.

Hmm, interesting about Effy, in that I feel like most of what she does I can understand in some frame. Like, I've always seen her as someone who wants to be a good person, but is scared of being rejected/hurt, so she runs from her own feelings by drugs/meaningless sex etc. But encouraging her friends to run from their feelings? Not so sure.

I can't wait for the Fitch family dynamics to come around, because it will mean lots of screen time for characters that I'm interested in, plus mini Fitch!

[lovely_noise]

I was thinking they could go down the "My mum's a useless hippy who doesn't have a job so now we can't pay the rent so it's either this or working the streets and Emily wouldn't be down for that kthx" route, but that's just straight into crack. And while I adore reading that I bloody hope they don't adopt those ideas for the real show. As one concession to the show though we did accept that they all helped Thomas deal that weed in his ep last series, so it's not too far from that to this. But it's still shakey ground.

I also don't get at all what's up with Emily. It's not like she's just suddenly more confident, it's that she's lost most of her niceness, and wasn't that really the main part of Emily? Or if not being nice at least being tolerant. And bitching about a dead girl who is helping you miss classes is about as unsympathetic and intolerant as it gets. So yeah, be loud and be proud Emily, but for Godsake remember that there's only room for one bitch in your relationship

[em_sh]

Emily... I found her difficult in S3, because she's just nice. Too nice perhaps, and I just can't relate to that at all. It got better as the season went on and she began to stand up for herself, but if she loses the initial niceness then I don't know who she becomes. Lol, show some respect to that dead girl that's getting you out of class. It'd be different if it was your own time she was taking up

[em_sh]

Yeah, I think it was a solid ep from a television point of view - like all the critics liked it, and I can see why. If you watch it objectively I think that it was quite powerful. But I wasn't invested in it, because we were missing most of the other characters and there were some personality changes/continuity issues from last year (but, with it being Skins, that really shouldn't be a shock!). It's kind of similar to how I viewed 3.10, which was a really good ep objectively - reasonably strong acting, character development, cinematography - but I missed having everyone there and so I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as some of the others which were technically not as good.

I'm not surprised by how serious it was, S2 was much the same, but it would be nice if there were a couple of eps that were a bit more lighthearted!