Skins recap, episode 4: the show that gets high school right—except when it doesn’t
We declared last week’s episode of Skins the most depressing to date. Well, this week’s topped it. Episode four was dedicated to Cadie (as in Katie—the non-traditional spelling is presumably just another way to demonstrate how kooky she is). Cadie likes Stanley, Stanley likes Michelle, Michelle likes Tony, Tony likes Tea and Tea likes girls.
The whole thing sounds scrumptiously smutty, so why does all feel so blah? It was like the whole episode downed a bunch of Cadie’s purple pills. Below, as usual, we offer our high school reality round up: what felt as real as Cadie’s mom’s rib cage (what was up with that, by the way?), and what felt faker than her pigeon phobia.
FO SHIZ: Skins gets it right
• Cadie gets used by the gang for her drugs. People seeking drugs will cheat, lie and act like jerks to get them, and high school students are no different. (Less believable is when Cadie seems surprised to learn of the scheme. Stanley practically attacked her for the goods on arrival. Did she think he was just happy to see her?).
• Michelle’s mom—that is, the party mom who thinks she’s cool, but is actually really embarrassing—is a classic high school character. Every gang had one. And yeah, it’s great that she serves you booze and lets you smoke, but not so cool when she gets totally sloshed and starts booty-dancing in her bikini. (Are we the only ones who can’t wait for the Michelle episode?)
• Cadie’s mom is a former beauty queen who puts her own unattainable expectations on her daughter and thinks feeling “pretty” is the cure to being depressed. Sadly, this type of mom most definitely exists.
BULLSHIZ: Skins gets it wrong
• Stanley goes an entire episode without getting food on his face? Unlikely.
• The whole masturbation/teddy bear incident. We’re all for tellin’ it like it is, but over-the-top sick-out antics, especially involving an innocent stuffed animal, makes ring more foul than fair.
• A high school pool party and not a single member of the gang who feels awkward in a bathing suit. Even Cadie, in all of her insecure, pigeon-fearing glory looks an American Apparel ad come to saucer-eyed life.
Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”
