Skins recap, episode 7: the show that gets high school right—except when it doesn’t

Skins recap, episode 7: the show that gets high school right—except when it doesn’t

It is to weep: Michelle learns that Tony’s cheating on her (Image: MTV)

We’ve been waiting a while for the Michelle episode. Who is this girl that hosts hot tub parties and lets Tony treat her like the town mattress while he pines away for a lesbian? In episode 7, Michelle finally finds out about Tony’s cheating and kicks him out of her bed permanently. It’s one of the more gripping scenes of the show thus far. She also discovers that Tea has betrayed her and that skin-tight miniskirts need to be worn with heels (was that a weird aside from the principal, or what?). Oh, and also that the only person looser than Tony may be her own mom. Do we smell a Mrs. Robinson plotline? Yes, please. In the meantime, our regular reality roundup follows.

FO SHIZ: Skins gets it right

• Chris wears one of those furry Russian toques to a warehouse party, even though it’s sweltering hot. Of course he does; he’s Wacky Hat Guy, that classic high school character in the vein of Girl Who Eats Her Hair and Guy Who Wears Shorts All Through the Winter.

• Stanley gets, er, overexcited during his make-out with Michelle. He’s been fantasizing about the girl since he was nine years old. What did you expect?

BULLSHIZ: Skins gets it wrong

• The episode opens with the gang at a giant warehouse party where they, apparently, stay out all night taking all sorts of drugs and rocking out to horrible electro music before going to school the next day. It’s not that we don’t buy kids getting wasted on a school night, but that seemed a little extreme, even by today’s standards.

• Daisy wants to leave the party, commenting: “I’m tired of people asking me when the wet T-shirt contest is.” This is as good a time as any to discuss why the resident “good girl” is constantly dressed like she’s about to pose for Maxim. Maybe the Daisy episode will reveal that she has an after-school job dancing in a window at an XXX underwear store.

• Michelle destroys dozens of snaps of her and Tony, which got us wondering: does the Facebook generation really keep such extensive hard photo collections? We don’t think so. (Though we guess throwing her laptop into the hot tub would have been a little extreme).