Skins Musings, s06 e04 - Franky...and a little rant!
I sat down to write about tonight's episode of Skins, which I enjoyed so much - like so much. I can't believe how much I'm enjoying this series. It's quality television and I simply can't wait for the next one, which I'm pretty sure was written by the lovely Jess Brittain.
But as I started writing about tonight's episode I began with a small rant which turned into a big rant, so please feel free to skip right over that unless you too get annoyed at the reactions some people are having over generation three.
Oh and I sooo hope there's a generation four of Skins. I would really love that.
There’s something that really annoys me about this series and this generation of Skins…and it’s not anything the writers have done, or the cast, it’s the fans. People who watched gen two with bated breath, who laughed with Cook, who cried with Naomily, who loved every single moment (bar maybe a couple) are now acting as though Skins is suddenly terrible.
It feels like people keep comparing the generations. Gen three isn’t “as good” as gen two, or gen one…Skins has “gone downhill”, it’s “not the same as it used to be”.
It really, quite frankly, annoys me.
Skins in 2012 isn’t Skins in 2007, it’s different. It’s the same programme and yet it’s not. Nobody can expect it to be the same (not validly in my opinion) because Skins will never be the same as it was in generation one. It doesn’t mean it’s bad. It just means it is different.
Comments that I’ve been reading over the last few weeks have made me feel a little bit ashamed of some (not all, of course!) Skins fans. They want gen three to be gen two, or gen one, that much is clear from some of the comments.
But it isn’t.
Why hate something for what it isn’t, when you can love it for what it is?
I know it’s not perfect, the cast and writers probably know it’s not perfect…there’s no such thing as perfect. You can never please everyone. People who were fans of gen one may have simply reached a different point in their life where Skins is no longer relatable to them. Does that make it crap? No. Everyone moves on at some point or other. With changing generations, as a fan, you’re not going to win the jackpot every time.
The first gen were the first, they were the Skins babies, they will always be loved by a lot of early fans. Yes it sucked that their gen only got two series, but that was the intention of the creators. Then we got gen two, we got Naomily and Cook and Katie and Effy in her own right. It was amazing and it was everything a lot of people didn’t expect to happen. A lot of gen one fans didn’t want another gen, so they gave up the programme. And yet gen two had so many followers, were they all the same as gen ones fans? Probably not. There would be some who carried on enjoying the programme and there will be others, like me, who discovered Skins post-gen one.
Now we’re on the third generation and people seem to be doing the same thing again “but gen two were so amazing”. Yes, they were. Are gen three gen two? No, they’re not.
They’re not the same, they never will be.
Which gen is better?
If you stopped watching after series two you will probably say gen one, if you fell for Naomily like I did, then you might say gen two. What about those who are discovering the series now?
Skins is like Blue Peter (no, it’s not innocent and there’s not many ‘here’s one I made earlier’ moments) - you will have your generation, like you will have your Blue Peter presenters. The ones that you remember more than any other, than ones that you hold in your heart because they were part of your life unlike any others.
Skins is as much valid today as it was six years ago, it’s different and yet it’s the same, it’s never going to be the programme you or anyone else watched in the beginning. And it doesn’t need to be.
If you reach this part of my post and don't want to read spoilers for episode four, then look away now.
Franky’s episode can be summed up in one word: explosive. It was full of pain and anger and violence. I’m not a big fan of blood and gore, but when it’s in the context that it was, it can fit. There were a few moments when I thought “what the hell?” but all in all I thoroughly enjoyed the episode.
I know a lot of people have put judgements on Franky and how she’s “changed”. I’m sorry but how many people who started sixth form college are the same person a year after starting than they were in the beginning? People change and I feel that Franky’s changes are in keeping with her character in keeping with what has happened in her life more recently.
Violence aside, this episode was filled with so many different emotions that you would expect from someone who has suffered a bereavement.
She’s lost, she feels alone, her friends aren’t really there for her - she tries to contact them, but they’re too busy struggling with their own grief - she’s grieving for the loss of her friend. On top of that she’s feeling guilty because she blames herself for the accident. She didn’t crash the car, but behind all of the basics of the accident, you could claim that she was to blame. She was the reason they were driving so fast, that they were driving at all.
Grace is haunting her and in true fictional worlds, we get to see the lovely Jessica Sula again on screen. Aside from the freaky ghost-like moments, Franky is so obviously being haunted by her grief, by her guilt.
It’s not going to be fixed easily, of course not. Franky’s so broken and she’s so stuck in her own head, in this world where Grace is talking to her (once in a while) and following her around.
I’ve come to understand that someone who is so utterly broken and fragile will go for someone who is equally broken, if only to reinforce their belief that actually they’re the problem. Insert Luke, the idiot who could also be considered partially to blame for Grace’s death.
It’s fucked up, it’s a mess and it’s violent because he’s a violent person. I don’t think Franky is with him because she likes him specifically. She’s alone and he’s someone who isn’t part of her friendship group (the fact she pushes Nick away when he’s the only friend who seems to care enough to support her says it all) and so she goes for him.
Luke reminds Franky of before the accident. She said herself that she wants to go back, to before the accident because then none of the pain and suffering would have happened. Being with Luke, it’s like she’s back in that car being driven god knows where. Before her life was torn into shreds when her boyfriend unintentionally killed one of her best friends and left her for dead.
It’s hardly surprising that everything that happened in this episode happened because actually, it all makes so much sense, when you really think about it.
Oh and Geoff and Jeff are such awesome Skins parents. It breaks my heart that Franky could argue with her older dad so forcefully that he gets hurt. Then her younger dad makes up for it all and though at times he appears the weaker one, he’s a fucking legend for standing up for his daughter. As he said, they may not be biological father and daughter…but tell that to his heart because he loves her like she is.