Effy's going to jail, Naomi's going to die, Emily's going to be even worse than death. Most of the viewer of the last episode of skins, cannot cope with tragic endings like that, including me at least for a while. For me, personally, it's not the death or prison that bothers the most, it is the non-dramatic way of telling almost nonchallently, of the most tragic ending that one can think of is happening right in front our eyes while pretend not a big deal of it. Instead of showing meanings to us, all is simply impled by. Those viewers seek for some kinda closure of the whole skins series aren't gonna get it, for there left so many lose ends; those who hope for drama aren't gonna get it, disappointed by its realistic telling of dramatic event and its anti-clamax of an ending; Those who expect twists and turns would surprise and flip at the extreme lack of it. Despite all that, we should decide to love it, after all that is the end we get in life.
The first thing needs to be clarified is that television becomes no less inferior than literature these days, at least for some good television shows like Skins, it is true. A fact we need to come to terms with. And as no sensible readers would curse the writer and demand him to rewrite an ending that he doesn't like, television is not an negotiation as well. For those who think it is, well you are so self-involved to hook on the delusion of it. That's the sole lie the life-shows nowadays are depending on you to believe, a conviction that the power's in your own hand. For Christ sake, what a convenient flattering that is! As sensible viewers, we see right through it, we accept what we got and try to appreciate the beauty of it.
After all, Skins fire. As the title suggests, it is about lights, destruction and rebirth. And a terrible beauty is born. Adulthood is such a terrible beauty. Especially for Effy, once aloof, indifferent, omniscient goodness in her little circle, washed by fire, and reborn into human. Of course, there's some sacrifice along the way. So walking out of paradise full of drugs, parties and hormones, here she is, taking three steps of becoming human as we know it.
Step one, compassion.
"I want to feel something, I want to be hurt! Come and hit me!" The girl ran into the middle of the street and exclaimed a death wish in front of world. That's near the ending of Effy's teenage years, almost the last we see her. Since then, apparently, the wish has come true. In fire, we see Effy's feeling, invisible as it always is, all over the place. The way she bites her finger nails watching Naomi on stage doing shitty comedy and being laughed at, the way she cries when being yielded at the truth of Naomi's illness, the way she goes blank hearing the doctor said the drug doesn't work and the way stares Naomi lying on the CT scan thereafter runs out of room, and the way she panics holding Naomi in her arms puking all over the place-- we never have seen Effy going through all levels of emotions before, not merely for herself, but for her best friend, for Naomi and Emily. With herself, she can be tough, takes it on her own: "I am fine", when Naomi asks she used three words as such to conclude it, even if she's not. Far from doing nothing, as Naomi accuses her to be, she's doing everything she could to hold it together, being tough for her, can't stop feeling for her but has to conceal it for her. That is not sth she told us, That's sth we sense. For those who love Naomi and Emily with such a bias to take in everything they say, myself included, might look beyond the surface and see they are blocked by own individuality as well. In fact, compassion is all Effy is in fire, "she has such big love inside of her, just needs to be let out, and the possibility to let out scares the hell of her" Effy's mom knows her nature well. Well, at least she smiles at the end, typical Effy smile, as if to say "you don't know me at all", or maybe this time, it says: "I can feel after all, i feel something". Compassion we know that is what makes us all human, and from the moment she feels it, Effy is no longer mysterious and inappoachable fairie, she is one of us, human.
Step two, mortality.
Naomi's death really provided an occasion for mourning, mourning for the beauty being tragically destroyed. It is sad, true. But it is sensible, as we consider it. After all it becomes a tradition of skins, to kill one favorite character at a time of generation. And for generation 2, Freddie is definitely not the most favorite one. It is the thing had between Naomi and Emily that makes the most wonderful thing that the make-believe world of skins had created for us. And let's face it, the most beautiful thing as it always, is irreplacable. There's no carnation for that, no reborn in it (as they are lesbians) therefore, it is immortal. This is the reason they can't survive the mortal world of adulthood. One of them has to be destroyed, and the other along with it. And as if killing our favorite couple isn't cruel enough, Effy needs to witness and learn from the tragic of all this, to see the only positive unyielding love that exists in her past world being worn out by an incurable disease of mankind. From the moment her best friend told her the illness, Effy knows it's gonna go down like this, she knows it too well, so she can't stand watching Naomi pretend like nothing and make fun of herself in a comedy, yet she complains in the most minute ways, pissing Naomi about the rent which essentially means the burden all weighs down on her- she needs to be the rock, and it's fucking hard. Neither can she offer comforts to her like innocent Dom, cause she knew it better, the truth hurts so much that she can't fathom a way to act it otherwise. Again, like I said, Mortality takes its toll, for Effy, it is the farewell paid to the old world of her past with Naomily in it, a burning ritual she has to experience descending to the world of works in her fantasy, a brave new world of men. And Naomily is the sacrifice, given that Homosexuality implies in literature a longing for death in itself. The poet and beauty must die, so the rest of us can keep on living.
Step three, helplessness.
At times we can't help but wonder why things always go terribly wrong with Effy, no matter how fucking together they all seem in the first glimpse! The onmiscent soul of this childhood circle stumbles way out of their idealistic small world and find she's merely a tool used by more onmiscent forces way sophisticated than she is. Helplessness is the condition of humanity. It breaks her charm, make her helpless. Emily says: "We idolized her." Cook's fucking Dad: "You are too pretty for your own good, that's why you destroy everything you touch." Such are the contrast between surface and core of Effy. Lights and destruction all sealed in one, waiting to be born. And in skins fire, it burst alive. It is interesting to note that in retrospect, everyone around Effy ends in various tragic ways: her parents separated, her brother got hit by a car, Freddie got killed and Cook went down for his revenge, and we thought Naomily is the only exception for they are special, how naive we are! There's a certain helpless gravity for tragic in Effy that makes her so appealing and at once so heartending. It almost seems nothing stays with her, under circumstances like that one almost certainly can't help but hold itself to blame. God knows how she serectly took the fault herself for all lost in life! In front of the mass of life, for the first time, we see her had no clue about what to do? It is Naomi in sick bed push some sense in her again, "Seriously what do we got, Effy? Well, I am going to die, what you gonna do? " That probably reminds her who she is and should be. After that, we see her picking up Emily at airport, possibly she called her up and reveal the truth as she should in the first place; then she made deal with victoria to tell on boss under sole condition that dom is untouched. She made the right choice eventually, as she used to be. Better late than never, taking responsibility for what she did like a fucking adult. It takes her edge off, which still makes me angry, not at her, but at the fucking real world of ours that rounded with such a flame in the first place. Yet the most helpless as it always was in Effy is the fact that she has to play the help all her life, which means no one helps Her, that she is truly THE most helpless one. That leads to off-putting love affair with her boss. But seriously cut her some slack, please. Leave aside the fact that boss is adulthood look-alike of Freddie, probably an unintended happy coincidence, she's lonely, and extremely so after a load of pressure landed on her, taking care of best friend mentally and financially, watchig them being happy and all that. What do we expect her to do, instead of cutting herself and going mental in the bathroom, isn't it much healthy distraction to find a man to love and entertain a little fantasy that somebody got her back? Dom and Boss, she picked the one who pays her rent, so that Naomi didn't have to. And that, for me, makes character of Eff, most lovable and lamentable beyond all.
The Effy who used to smile her mysterious smiles that says "you don't know me at all", still smiles at us in the end. Is it sort of mock or self mock? for many a thousand viewers shall this, her mock, mock out of their retardness after seeing all she went through still don't see who the hell she is; mock herself from dreaming our world to be hers therefore making effort to it; mock grown-ups down, and others yet ungotten and unborn that shall have cause to curse the city that bereaves her Eden and beloved from earth.
Skins fire comes to an end. The followings, in this order, comes pure and rise. It is interesting to note that in the trailor the order has been rearenged: it should be rise, fire, and pure. That is to say the actually serie begins in the medres, classic order of story telling. And it should be expected to return to rise in a circle, suggesting to a eternal reoccurrence of the proccess. Therefore, we have reasons to believe fire is the brutalest one, perhaps things would pick up tone a bit: in pure, it might smooth out a bit, going for depth; rise probably going to be full of struggles but worth it. But eventually, as the trailor so artisticaly hints at: three individual under one skin, going through phases, transforming into one another's life. Step by step, we walk out of ourself, into hers, into his then eventually back to our own skins. All change and changed utterly, a terrible beauty is born.
第6集完结
