Skins recap, episode 6: the show that gets high school right—except when it doesn’t
This week, the Skins kids engage in some northern exposure during an Outward Bound–style wilderness excursion to Canada (the series is filmed right here in Hogtown, but is set in a non-specific American city). Canadian clichés are the name of the game as the group picks a fight with a Mountie, gets into a bus accident with a moose and smokes “pure B.C. bud.” In non-plot-related news, the show slipped below the one-million-viewers mark this week, which means 1) the attempt to grab viewers’ attention with a racy underwear shoot in Elle was a bust, and 2) chances are Tony and company won’t live to see another season. And so, while we still can, we give you this week’s reality roundup of what seemed real and what seemed fake.
FO SHIZ: Skins gets it right
• All the kids pull out their cellphones to record teacher Dave’s ridiculous run-in with a moose. Because this is the age we live in now, where one’s stupidest actions are seconds away from being the next YouTube phenomenon.
• Chris instructs Abbud to prey on a weak, insecure girl if he really wants to lose his virginity ASAP. Crass, but correct.
BULLSHIZ: Skins gets it wrong
• Stanley gets pot across the border by hiding it up his, er, northern passage. We’re not buying it—and we weren’t feeling the running constipation gag. We get that teens like to get high, but the amateur drug mule antics just didn’t ring true.
• Tea rebuffs Betty’s advances because “relationships suck.” Maybe they do, but who said anything about a relationship? When your romantic interest sneaks into your tent after lights out she’s not there to discuss mortgage terms.
• When the gang finds fungus growing in the forest, Tony says, “these don’t look like psychedelic mushrooms to me.” What they do look like are king oyster mushrooms from a grocery store. We call foul on the (apparently unconnected) props staffers.
• Tea and Abbud frolic on the beach in the type of montage that only happens in movies. And even then, it’s usually two young lovers. Since when do platonic high school pals engage in The Way We Were moments?
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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.”
