My Mad Fat Diary: Thoughts & pic spam on episode 1.02 Touched
Blurb: Rae is determined to catch up with the rest of the gang in terms of her sexual experience, but worries her weight will stop her from getting a boyfriend. When one of the boys in the gang asks her out on a date, she embarks on a journey of sexual discovery.
There's a sad scene at the beginning of the episode where Chloe is 'comforting' Rae but actually ends up making her feel worse when she tells her that boys don't like fat girls. Rae imagines herself taking off her fat suit and burning it … It's a surprisingly powerful and tragic scene.
Here's the video:
Later at the pub, Rae has a moment with Archie but then has to run away when Chloe puts her on the spot and asks her to share details of sexual experiences. Finn continues to steal a lot of glances … not sure why at this stage. Puzzled? Curious? I know some people are wanting to see shippiness here but I don't see it here yet. It's still just trying to understand her.
God, the horror.
Kester tells her that she needs to learn to like things about herself. She finds this very unlikely. After her therapy session, she's with Tix in the cafeteria and asks her what Tix likes about her. Tix tells her that she likes everything about her. Rae asks her to be more specific and Tix says she can't - because there's nothing she doesn't like about Rae :)
At that moment, things go horribly wrong when Danny comes up to Tix and unthinkingly lays a hand on Tix's wrist. Tix goes absolutely ballistic and bashes him across the head with her food tray. Rae intervenes and is able to take the tray away from Tix ... and even pick her up like a distressed child and comfort her :'(
Video of the scene here.
While she's out with Chloe, to her total shock, Archie asks Rae out on a date. Although because of a run-in with her mother Rae is forced to miss her 'date' with Archie, he comes by to her place and they sneak out together. It's a nice date from Rae's perspective - he kisses her and gropes her boob - by the end she is completely smitten and convinced he must have feelings for her ...
Later at the pub, Chop is teasing her about the date and she confesses that there was a kiss and a bit of a grope … Again, it's hard to know what Finn is thinking. In the original diary, Haddock (sort of the Finn character) is aware that Harry (sort of the Archie character) was trying to throw people off the scent of his homosexuality, so in the diary, Haddock is aware that Harry is gay and he even tries to caution/comfort Rae.
In the series though, we don't know how much Finn knows or suspects about Archie's sexuality. His glances at Rae could be curiosity … I really don't know.
In any case, Finn appears to be making a studied attempt to concentrate on his experiment with Chop even though he keeps glancing at Rae.
There's a gorgeous 'happy' moment where Izzy and Chloe help Rae get all prettied up for her next date with Archie …
As she's waiting in the takeaway for Archie, Izzy and Chloe are there to give support. To her dismay, Kester's there reading a paper and she has to lie and say that he's an uncle. Unfortunately Archie doesn't show up and sends Finn in his place to tell her that he's not coming.
It's really awful to see how much this devastates Rae … :( She stares in the mirror and touches the scars on her thigh through the fabric of her leggings …
Then she burns herself with hot water and it's just so awful :'( It sounds melodramatic and extreme … but she's incredibly devastated by this latest turn of events and I suppose she just heightens her self-loathing.
Then she grieves in bed and then drowns her sorrows in food :(
To her surprise, Finn arrives at her door and basically apologises - that he wouldn't have passed on the message had he known it was supposed to be a date. He doesn't want her to add it to the long list of things she hates about him … She tells him the list isn't that long. It's a strange moment - the realisation that he cares what she thinks about him, that he felt bad about seeing her hurt.
He tells her where she can find Archie to give him a good kick up the backside :)
Rae goes in search of Archie like a vengeful Valkyrie …
When she finds him, he's peeping through a hole into the men's change room …
Horrified, she asks him if she's the one who turned him gay before dashing off …
He follows her and they have a heart to heart … he basically used her to double check that he was gay :( He dare not come out in Lincolnshire … They reach a point of mutual understanding and affection. So she can save face, the official story is that she turned him down …
In this episode, we learn more about the extent of Rae's body image issues … we learn that Chloe is as insensitive as we might have guessed, we learn that Archie is secretly gay and not yet ready to come out and is still trying to decide if he is actually gay … We learn that Finn seems to care if Rae likes him or not.
Index to other MMFD pic spams/episode thoughts
There's a sad scene at the beginning of the episode where Chloe is 'comforting' Rae but actually ends up making her feel worse when she tells her that boys don't like fat girls. Rae imagines herself taking off her fat suit and burning it … It's a surprisingly powerful and tragic scene.
Here's the video:
Later at the pub, Rae has a moment with Archie but then has to run away when Chloe puts her on the spot and asks her to share details of sexual experiences. Finn continues to steal a lot of glances … not sure why at this stage. Puzzled? Curious? I know some people are wanting to see shippiness here but I don't see it here yet. It's still just trying to understand her.
God, the horror.
Kester tells her that she needs to learn to like things about herself. She finds this very unlikely. After her therapy session, she's with Tix in the cafeteria and asks her what Tix likes about her. Tix tells her that she likes everything about her. Rae asks her to be more specific and Tix says she can't - because there's nothing she doesn't like about Rae :)
At that moment, things go horribly wrong when Danny comes up to Tix and unthinkingly lays a hand on Tix's wrist. Tix goes absolutely ballistic and bashes him across the head with her food tray. Rae intervenes and is able to take the tray away from Tix ... and even pick her up like a distressed child and comfort her :'(
Video of the scene here.
While she's out with Chloe, to her total shock, Archie asks Rae out on a date. Although because of a run-in with her mother Rae is forced to miss her 'date' with Archie, he comes by to her place and they sneak out together. It's a nice date from Rae's perspective - he kisses her and gropes her boob - by the end she is completely smitten and convinced he must have feelings for her ...
Later at the pub, Chop is teasing her about the date and she confesses that there was a kiss and a bit of a grope … Again, it's hard to know what Finn is thinking. In the original diary, Haddock (sort of the Finn character) is aware that Harry (sort of the Archie character) was trying to throw people off the scent of his homosexuality, so in the diary, Haddock is aware that Harry is gay and he even tries to caution/comfort Rae.
In the series though, we don't know how much Finn knows or suspects about Archie's sexuality. His glances at Rae could be curiosity … I really don't know.
In any case, Finn appears to be making a studied attempt to concentrate on his experiment with Chop even though he keeps glancing at Rae.
There's a gorgeous 'happy' moment where Izzy and Chloe help Rae get all prettied up for her next date with Archie …
As she's waiting in the takeaway for Archie, Izzy and Chloe are there to give support. To her dismay, Kester's there reading a paper and she has to lie and say that he's an uncle. Unfortunately Archie doesn't show up and sends Finn in his place to tell her that he's not coming.
It's really awful to see how much this devastates Rae … :( She stares in the mirror and touches the scars on her thigh through the fabric of her leggings …
Then she burns herself with hot water and it's just so awful :'( It sounds melodramatic and extreme … but she's incredibly devastated by this latest turn of events and I suppose she just heightens her self-loathing.
Then she grieves in bed and then drowns her sorrows in food :(
To her surprise, Finn arrives at her door and basically apologises - that he wouldn't have passed on the message had he known it was supposed to be a date. He doesn't want her to add it to the long list of things she hates about him … She tells him the list isn't that long. It's a strange moment - the realisation that he cares what she thinks about him, that he felt bad about seeing her hurt.
He tells her where she can find Archie to give him a good kick up the backside :)
Rae goes in search of Archie like a vengeful Valkyrie …
When she finds him, he's peeping through a hole into the men's change room …
Horrified, she asks him if she's the one who turned him gay before dashing off …
He follows her and they have a heart to heart … he basically used her to double check that he was gay :( He dare not come out in Lincolnshire … They reach a point of mutual understanding and affection. So she can save face, the official story is that she turned him down …
In this episode, we learn more about the extent of Rae's body image issues … we learn that Chloe is as insensitive as we might have guessed, we learn that Archie is secretly gay and not yet ready to come out and is still trying to decide if he is actually gay … We learn that Finn seems to care if Rae likes him or not.
Index to other MMFD pic spams/episode thoughts