Skins 3: "Pandora"

Pandora. Who woulda thunk that the girl who likes to eat pens (and cocaine) would turn into one of this season’s most interesting characters. At the beginning of this episode Pandora’s still pining for Thomas, her lost love of three days, but she isn’t exactly down in the dumps about it just yet (that comes later). In fact, she’s in quite a cheery mood, talking up an intelligible storm at Effy’s breakfast table and being giddy about her pajama party.

At the party we finally get to meet Pandora’s mum who we’ve only had to imagine since Pandora told her over the phone that she was staring at Tony’s cock. Suffice it to say Mrs. Moon is everything I was hoping her to be. The thing that keeps surprising me about Skins is how fully formed all the individual worlds are. The peripheral characters especially (Pandora’s neurotic mom, the neighbor with the affinity for Edward Scissorhands-like landscaping and a penchant for S&M) remind me of the kind of characters you’d find in a Wes Anderson movie: quirky, crazy, and innately interesting. Most of the writers for this show haven’t reached their thirties yet but you’d think they were doing this sort of thing for ages.

The party, which was supposed to consist of jelly and twister (and a bouncy moonwalk in the yard!) quickly turns into something more appropriate for Skins, which is to say it’s filled with sex, drugs, booze, and unruly behavior. And thanks to Effy’s scheming Pandora’s mom is blissfully out of it for the duration.

Though, as much as it was Pandora’s name in the title, this episode was shared with Effy.

Her mother’s affair has finally come to light and in a sad and all-too-real scene that involved Mr. Stonem both calling Anthea a bitch and telling her he loves her we got to see Effy emote– which is a rarity. “They fuck you up,” she tells Pandora.

Effy deals with a lot of issues in this ep; her parents, her love life, but what it all really comes down to-- what’s been the great big elephant in the room since last year– is friendship. Effy may be hanging out with a lot more people this season and she may have collected herself a sidekick but things haven’t changed much since Episode 7 of Series 2 when she told Pandora that she doesn’t have any friends.

Effy starts to realize the impact of her friendless friendships when Pandora confronts her through the door of her loo, accusing Effy of not being sympathetic to her needs and ruining her party. Because it’s her party and she’ll cry if she wants to. (Lisa Backwell does an amazing job of straddling the line between bonkers and sincere. Well, she’s always sincere but this time she asks us to empathize with her character and she absolutely holds the viewer in the palm of her hand.)

And then comes Freddie, or as I’m going to start calling him now; Fun Sponge (thanks show!), who was quick to point fingers when he came to save pick up JJ. “You have to look after him!” Ah, Freddie. Effy doesn’t exactly “look after” people. In fact, she looks pretty confused at the concept, mumbling something about Cook being the guy’s friend. The scene ended with Effy realizing just how big of a mess she’s gotten herself into by running to Cook when she should have been following her heart and getting it on with Freddie. But that’s Effy for you. She’s a runner. When her parents split, she splits, and when she develops feelings for skater boys with emo haircuts she jumps into bed with the Wrong Guy.

But it wasn’t til episode’s end that Effy finally got the message she needed from Pandora. You don’t get to be mad at your best friend stealing your man when you aren’t really best friends to begin with.

Which brings us to Pandora/Cook! This ship sailed in out of nowhere but... it just felt so right! Nothing has to happen between them again (and nothing probably should) but in that Twister scene we got to see what a Cookie and a Panda looks like together. And it actually worked! Cook may be a horn dog on the loose but what makes him so ultimately lovable is that he’ll try everything but he isn’t above anything. If the weird girl wants to play to Twister why shouldn’t he? He was the only one out of the gang who wasn’t mortified by the idea. And you gotta love the guy for that.

And as if the episode didn’t tackle enough it also gave us the Emily/Naomi storyline that so many fans have been pining for. Emily’s been a favorite of mine since the beginning but my love for Naomi has grown with each episode and it hit its high point here. Everything from the way she dealt with the prying neighbor to the way she described herself as a “cock cruncher” (loved the “tennis elbow” joke in her little erectile dysfunction discord). Their first kissing scene was executed really well (especially with the chorus of the Lily Allen song perfectly suiting the scene; Emily not being able to find the words to ask for a kiss but Naomi figuring it out anyway; Naomi’s “Oh” afterwards like she maybe should consider doing this female kissing thing more. She may have blamed it on the drugs but if that bouncy moonwalk scene was any indication, she enjoyed it.

Other things about the ep:

-THOMAS!!!! I think I missed the guy just as much as Pandora.... ok, not quite, but still, it was so nice to see that he’s back! And seeing the two of them hug just looked so right. I’m rooting for this couple.

- Katie. For the last three eps we’re meant to like her about as much as Emily does but this episode finally turned things around for her character. She’s such an annoying little bitch that it’s actually funny at this point. Especially the scene where Effy looked non-too-pleased to see her again and Katie proceeded to gush to her boyfriend about her new BFF.

- Leave it to Skins to give new meaning to the words “Pandora’s Box.” What will we find in there next!

- Kaya’s acting has gone leaps and bounds since last year. She was at the top of her game in this episode.

- JJ seeing all the naughty stuff that Cook warned him about was pretty funny, but I’m starting to question his character a little bit. Is he so socially awkward that he’d really start to go mental at a party? I don’t know what to make of him yet.

- They’re doing an awful job of covering up Jack O’Connell’s tattoo (the one beneath “Jack the Lad”). First there was his green shirt which rode up when he was on the roof with JJ and showed the tattoo creeping under the rim. Then there was the makeup that did not match his skin tone at all. His character’s already got tattoos, so why bother covering this one up?