#ANYWAY Ingrid really made the whole scene tbh

[tenitchyfingers]

Actually she was interviewed about this. She’s not a plant, she was literally just there with her child and accepted to get interviewed because she saw three kids trying to get interviews and nobody would accept to be interviewed. Everything she did and said on the day was made up on the spot. Including Ingrid trying to silence her mom when talking about spooky witch stuff. That’s not to say there weren’t plant in the local population interviewed for the first act, but this woman literally was just there.

Shout out to this one woman from Blair Witch Project. According to the directors everyone involved in the scene was a plant, except for her, some random woman from the real Burkitsville who was asked about the Blair Witch and immediately made up a story about seeing a documentary on the Discovery Channel about disappearing hunters. While carrying a child. Unsung MVP of horror

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam France S2.2 reaction

they managed to make one of my most disliked parts somewhat less bad

slow clap for Skam France?

some very heated opinions below, be aware!

Episode 2

For real, some very negative opinions are coming, and it’s not my intention to make anyone feel like garbage about something they like. If you’re a fan of Noorhelm/Marles, maybe don’t read.

Clip 1 - Manon and Emma in class

I like Emma a lot more this season. I didn’t feel like the actress quite carried the really vulnerable moments, but she’s exhibiting more personality with her take on S2 Party Eva.

They cut the scene with the two girls asking Noora if Jonas had a girlfriend and if he were dating Eva, so the vibe is kind of different. With that context it seems like Noora wants to gently nudge him Eva into moving on because she suspects Jonas is moving on. This has some of that but it also feels less urgent, because Manon doesn’t have quite the same reason to be concerned for Emma’s feelings in that moment.

I do like Emma’s bit about being kidnapped by that prostitution ring in Taken, that’s funny.

Clip 2 - Yann the Man

Charles’ text about seeing Manon even though she was trying to hide - WHY. Why would they add this shit? Do they not get how uncomfortable this makes girls feel? Manon goes to school with this guy so there is nothing she can do to completely avoid him. He is not only just checking her out, but he’s making sure she’s aware of it. Let’s be clear: she wanted to hide from him, and he made sure she knew that he noticed she was trying to hide, and he made sure she knew that it didn’t work.

Look, I know that many Noorhelm fans also hate William’s behavior at the beginning of S2 and only warmed up to him as the season progressed. For me it’s that this opening behavior is so bad, such a textbook example of male entitlement in action, that it’s hard for me to ever get past it. I just have very few fucks to give about men who prioritize their boner feels over women’s boundaries.

Lucas, Sarah, and Ingrid here are like when Ron Weasley and Lavender Brown started sucking face and Harry and Parvati Patil had that shared moment of “God, our friends are getting on our nerves.”

I super love French Ingrid. I love her being bored and annoyed by Lucas and Sarah, and then her flustered reaction to Yann was great.

So what I’m taking away from Daphne’s reaction is that Manon and Emma probably told the whole girl squad about what they saw on Lucas’ phone. Not cool.

AND NOW a breakdown of Yann’s power walk. This scene annoyed me, because they did not put in the work of setting it up. This is Skam France’s worst quality; it copies the events at surface level without understanding why they are there or how they got there in the first place. At least this is a smaller humorous moment and not something dramatically important, even though it is relevant in terms of Emma’s character this season.

Let’s go over how the two shows set up this scene. Skam plants the setup during last Friday’s scene at Noora’s. The girls get to talking about sex, it’s a frank conversation. Vilde wants to know if the others have ever experienced a guy going down on them, because she thinks (hopes) William may do it to her. Eva jokes that no Norwegian guys will go down on girls, telling us in an indirect way about this aspect of her relationship with Jonas. This part of the scene is so comedic and light-hearted that on first viewing, you might not assume that it’s not anything except banter, a fun conversation that Noora has no part in and serves as a contrast to her anxiety over William’s attempts to contact her and Vilde’s continued interest in William. At the start of the next episode, we have a clip with Noora at her locker and being approached by two unknown girls who clearly catch her off guard, too, and want to know whether Jonas has a girlfriend. This random encounter leads her to prod about Jonas from Eva and subtly push her in the direction of moving on, as she suspects that Jonas may no longer be single. Then we get The Clip. As Vilde makes conversation with Ingrid, Eva notices girls’ heads turning in one direction, whispering and giggling. She follows their gaze. They’re looking at Jonas. She wants to know why, and she gets the answer about Jonas going down on a third year. Vilde looks confused, then starts to ask Eva about what she said on Friday, but Noora shakes her head as we get Eva’s stunned reaction. Jonas comes up to them and we get an iconic quote.

Skam France sets it up like this: Sarah tells us that Yann is the big man of campus, we see him walking and girls reacting, we get the explanation about Yann going down on the third-year, Emma seems a bit upset, he goes up to the girl squad and drops his line.

We don’t get the setup of “French guys not going down on girls” so there’s no impact of Yann being THE man, THE one true cunnilingus hero (and I have no idea what’s the general attitude of French men toward going down on women but I mean, you could spin this as “teenage boys are all about their own pleasure and don’t eat out girls” no matter what country you’re in) (except lol it ain’t gonna work in Skam Italia, thanks Giovanni!) - like I can understand in-universe why the girls might be impressed but from an audience POV, we’re not given any means of comparison to understand just why this is such a big deal

We don’t get that earlier line from Emma in particular so there’s no impact of understanding how upset she might be about this - not just that Yann is hooking up with other girls, but that he’s doing something with them that he apparently never did with her

There’s no additional moment of realization, “oh, so THAT’S why those random girls suddenly wanted to know if Yann is single,” a Brick Joke to use a TVTropes phrase, because they cut that scene

Even within the scene itself, it’s not built up? Like in OG we see girls reacting to Jonas and Eva picking up on it before we land the punchline. This one just tells you off the bat that Yann did a Thing, look at him (this bothers me less than the omission of the other stuff but in combination with it, it’s another symptom)

Is any of this a crime? No. Could people still find the Yann scene funny? Sure. But if this were my show, and I had to cut some things that didn’t fit into the episodes? I would question whether this scene was as effective without the buildup. I would question whether it was necessary. If I had to get across Emma’s moment of hurt, that likely inspires her to start hooking up with dudes from social media, I would consider whether it could be written in another way.

TBH I know I’m sounding nitpicky, but honestly this is why I enjoy overanalyzing the remakes. I felt like I learned something about setup and punchlines from observing the two scenes, and I appreciate how deftly Julie managed to make an extended oral sex joke pack some emotional punch.

I did like the music break from when he was walking to the exposition, and that was an admittedly great line from Yann about being hungry.

Clip 3 - Daphne loves lesbians

Daphne was sitting apart from the other girls at the beginning of the scene seeming very disconnected, hmmm.

Also Emma is not using Tinder in this version, she’s using Instagram  and seems a bit firm that she isn’t using Tinder, so I wonder what the significance of that was. Maybe because Tinder is an app used for dating, and she doesn’t want to seem like she’s trying too much to move on, whereas Instagram is a more generic app with other purposes and hey, if a guy happens to message you, why not just roll with it, right?

And Emma immediately says no fake plans, like she just immediately calls it, though Manon fakes them anyway.

Does anyone else think that Alex’s sexuality is being handled really strangely, and by strangely I mean not at all? Because from what I recall, in canon we really just that comment about her hooking up with the girl named Clara and wanting to see Daphne’s topless pics. Her bisexuality was confirmed by the actress, outside of the show. This scene would’ve been a perfect time to address Alex’s sexuality directly, especially because Daphne is the kind of clueless character who would say something boneheaded that would require some education. When Daphne asks Manon whether she’s a lesbian, why not have her mention something like, “It’s OK if you like girls, so does Alex,” or even make a misguided comment about how Alex and Manon could pair off? Or have Alex make some kind of joke related to the discussion? Like this is genuinely weird to me not to acknowledge it at all in this context, when Daphne is even saying that their laughter makes it an unsafe environment for Manon to come out, but there’s also a bi girl sitting right there, participating in the laughter? It feels like another example of them just not thinking through the script that much.

This is why I’m skeptical about how they’ll handle the bit with Daphne and Emma making out, as seen in the trailer. Because again, they have a girl in the group who actually is supposed to be bisexual and who has apparently hooked up with girls, and yet we don’t hear much about it except in passing, but if we get these two supposedly straight girls making out because they’re drunk … that’s not a great look? What I’m worried is that they’ll play it completely like the original show because they’re just following the script and not thinking about it, while ignoring that they’ve changed a character’s sexuality and it might be relevant.

They cut the bit with Jamilla and her crew, so maybe they won’t play a role this season. I guess if they ever get to season four, they’re really going to have to rewrite the story because the bus plot will not make sense. But it’s kind of a bummer, I hope they find another way to include those girls. I think Skam France could improve on the original in how much they used the hijab squad in the show.

Manon, what was your objective in coming on to Daphne like that? You just have to get in her personal space. MMMMkay girl.

OK I laughed my ass off at Daphne posting a “love is love” image immediately after this clip. 

God, I really wish we had Daphne for season three.

Clip 4 - The date

It only took me two whole episodes to figure out who Mika reminds me of: Ben Whishaw. Which is super obvious now that I recognize it.

Mickael’s DRAMAAAAAA is up there with P-Chris’ iconic version. Manon’s imitation is also good.

Mickael is smart negotiating for a birthday gift even if it didn’t quite work. I like his style.

Manon doesn’t wipe off her lipstick (like Noora did) which maybe is supposed to signify that she’s attracted to Charles, or maybe that she’s less concerned with how she presents to him. She does seem to be more confident when she squares off with him verbally.

I know the part in the car with The Weeknd is Iconique but I thought this version was fine and worked about as well   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

This is one of my most hated parts of the original show, so let’s see how they did.

Disregarding the context of how he got her on this date, that’s a nice setup with the chairs on the rooftop (which I’m guessing he dragged up there himself).

Actually ... you know what, there’s a lot of uncomfortable stuff about this part that I didn’t even realize previously because it’s presented so cinematically. (Assume that when I refer to Charles here, I also mean William because it’s more or less the same writing.) One thing I’ve never really considered until now is that if Charles (or any guy) pressured me into this date, didn’t accept my rejection, said that saying no will just make him want me more ... I would be fucking afraid if I finally went with him on a date and he took me to an isolated area. Now I didn’t think about that at first because this is a very beautiful scene from an aesthetic point of view! There is some gorgeous cinematography in both this scene and the original version. And he gives her something to drink and it’s cute because he remembered she doesn’t drink alcohol, so he made cocoa, cocoa is a drink that brings to mind warm, cozy feelings! Awww!

But take this out of the pretty TV context: in real life, a guy who has made it clear he doesn’t take no for an answer and who takes me to a nice secluded area and gives me a drink he made himself? Would raise serious alarms. I would have this feeling of dread in my stomach. And I don’t think you can disregard this train of thought or call it unfair or over-the-top, because guess what, Noora (Manon too by the looks of it) is potentially drugged later in the season when someone gives her a drink (I don’t remember if they ever confirmed if she was drugged or if she just got very drunk and blacked out, but we’re definitely supposed to think it’s a possibility). We do have a sexual assault storyline later on, with this very same character. It is completely reasonable to consider these dynamics especially in light of the season’s larger themes and topics.

I am being 100% serious ... what reason does Manon have to think that Charles is not capable of date rape at this point? Think about it, consider it from her POV where she doesn’t know what’s going to happen later in this season, just analyze what she knows in this moment. So far he’s had sex with her friend and then ignored her and cruelly put her down, and he’s pursued her despite her rejecting him, he’s openly said that he doesn’t take her “no” seriously, he’s sent her messages that make clear he’s noticed she’s tried to hide from him and he doesn’t care, he’s cornered her into this date. Other than the fact that Charles is our designated male lead, why should Manon trust him? Why should we? The only reason is because we know we’re watching a TV show, we know that this is the scene where we start to build up to our characters getting together later. Charles is handsome, Charles will be The Love Interest, therefore Charles is going to be a good guy. If Charles was some gross, unattractive, obnoxious dude who would clearly not end up with our heroine, how would this scene feel? 

The jab at Twilight is hilarious and accurate. They are Bella and Edward.

“Why did you get into my car?” You fucking know why, dude.

This shit about him not pressuring her to go out with her is wrong. Yes. He did. Him just saying he didn’t doesn’t make it true. If just saying stuff made it true I’m going to go around calling myself Julie Andem and telling people I’m working on Skam Season 5: The Adventures of Dr. Skrulle and Her Wife, The Danish Receptionist.

In original Skam Noora did tell Vilde that there was nothing going on with her and William before this point, I don’t think Manon did. So I guess Manon could have done that. But Charles has put her in a complicated place. Manon asked him to apologize to Daphne. He did so on the condition that Manon go on a date with him. At this point Manon can’t tell Daphne she’s going out with Charles without having to explain why, which means nullifying the apology in the first place. And Manon is trying to avoid him but he won’t let it happen, and he’s shown that he’s willing to use Daphne to get to her. 

All right, here’s why I fucking hate this scene: this is a prime opportunity for William/Charles to show some humility and character growth about what happened with Vilde/Daphne, and he doesn’t. Not once during this conversation does he express regret for how he handled the Vilde/Daphne situation. Not once does he express remorse or consideration for her feelings. Instead he offers several excuses about why what he did was justified, which happen to be about benefiting himself. So basically his apology was hollow and only about getting this date with Noora/Manon. Yes, it is early in the season and his character should be able to grow in future episodes, but I don’t recall William ever changing his tune on this topic, specifically. 

And tbh what's irritating is that this is framed like William/Charles has some reasonable points, and no, he doesn’t, literally every excuse he offers can be easily torn down. Noora/Manon can be judgmental, for sure, they can assess people incorrectly, but in this scene, they are completely right in their criticisms of what happened.

“Being nice to someone you want to get rid of doesn’t work ... I’ve been clear with her.” So did he ever try ... telling her outright ... you know, BEFORE they have sex, “hey, I’m not looking for a relationship.” Oh wait, the girl might not want to have sex with him then. Or even explaining it in direct but not malicious words afterwards? From what I remember, he basically just ghosted her until she confronted him and he tore her down. He doesn’t have to promise her anything, but he also owes her some basic respect. And he knew he was doing something cruel. Remember when he walked by Daphne and the girls in the schoolyard and he made a point of establishing eye contact, then looking away? 

“I’m not responsible” for harming Daphne’s self-image - oh shut up. If I went up to a random person on the street and told them they were ugly, I probably wouldn’t break their spirits forever and ever. But I probably would play on any insecurities they had. I would possibly create new insecurities that weren’t there. And I would possibly make them feel like garbage. So yes, I have to take some responsibility for the fallout.

And lmao, what bothers me is that yeah, actually we do see how cruel comments can affect one’s self-image over and over throughout the show. We see it with Vilde and Daphne, how this made them feel like they weren’t pretty enough and influenced their disordered eating. We saw it with Noora, how her shitty previous boyfriend also messed up her self-image and caused her to get sick. We saw it with Isak, how casual homophobia and comments about gay people around him influenced how he saw himself and made it difficult to call himself gay. We saw it with Sana, how she was bullied at her old school for being Muslim, how Islamophobia affected her and shaped her, how desperate she was to prove herself because people were judging her on all sides. It’s fine if William/Charles is meant to be wrong. What bugs me is that the way this is presented, makes it seem like he’s supposed to be right.

“I’m not letting her think there are chances when there aren’t” - aren’t you texting Daphne and inviting her to things? He absolutely knows how Daphne is going to respond to this. If he was so desperate to use one of the girls as a go-between for him and Manon, he could easily get Emma’s number from his pal Alex. But no, he is going through Daphne deliberately, because he knows she’ll be an enthusiastic messenger. And he knows she’s going to get hopeful. He literally says that she’s into him again! 

Characters can be flawed, characters don’t need to always say the right words. But William never had a turnaround where he acknowledged that his courtship of Noora or his treatment of Vilde was wrong, outside of that apology that he apparently didn’t mean, when these were things that he really, really needed to address in terms of his development. I fear that they’ll do the same with Charles since this remake is so close.

That being said, there are a few things in this scene that I preferred to the original:

One of the dumb things William says is that “if you see if from his side” Vilde is the one who pursued him, she approached him and wanted to sleep with him,. This is the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard. William is not obligated to sleep with every girl who comes on to him. He and Vilde had a consensual sexual encounter, Vilde did not trip and fall on his dick, and he was participating in her flirtations and contacting her. Take some responsibility for your role in this, dude. This bit of blame-deflecting is thankfully missing from this scene, sparing me that particular headache.

Charles’ actor has more emotional range than William’s and I felt like he maybe did feel a bit less assured in his position, whereas William felt pretty smug about it the whole way through.

Manon seems less stumped by Charles’ comments than Noora did. Not that Noora needed to have all the answers all the time, but it always  saddened me that William’s BS excuses were what had her tongue-tied. Also her turning his sad anecdote into sarcasm about the homeless was good.

When Manon says she’ll walk home, Charles doesn’t push her and says it’s fine. That seems counter to chivalry, but it’s at least him respecting something she wanted, even if it might just be because he was busy with his fight drama.

The music throughout the clip was good, but the music at the end got too DRAMAAAAAAAAA for my liking.

General Comments:

I’m going to be honest, I think the actor playing Charles has more charisma than William, so on a superficial level I’m engaged more during the Manon/Charles scenes, and like I said above, I think it benefited his character in the date scene. But there are some ways I think this might make his character seem worse, for instance when telling Daphne she wasn’t good enough, it felt a lot more deliberately mean whereas William seemed so checked out of the whole thing that it was less like he wanted to twist the knife. So we’ll see how he fares at some later parts of the season. 

Tangent but I love the girls texting about Jane the Virgin. Also that Manon references Pedro Almodóvar and Emma’s like “we don’t have the same reference pool,” that legit made me laugh.

This had a lot of negative remarks, lol. Probably this will be as negative as it gets, tbh. That one scene just makes me angry.

I’m not French so I apologize if I misinterpret, and feel free to correct me. 

If you made it this far, thank you for reading!

[lightsandlostbells]

SkamFr Episode 6 reaction

For some reason the read-more keeps getting removed from my long-ass posts even though I make an effort to put it in, I apologize for that.

This episode contained some really great things (Alex 💖💖!) and also made me able to articulate something about the remake that is part of why, despite having things I’ve enjoyed, I don’t feel it is that emotionally resonant. It lacks fragility. 

Clip 1: Lucas gets the dirt from Emma

You know I don't have a problem with Yann being a skateboarder or whatever, that's where they're going with his character, but it low-key exasperates me because (as we just heard this week) Jonas was into skateboarding because Marlon Langeland was. Similar example, Sana played basketball because Iman Meskini plays basketball in real life. I believe Eva’s Black Swan costume was a nod to Lisa Teige being a dancer. Is Yann’s actor into skateboarding IRL? I don't know. Maybe he is. But by sticking to the original characters so slavishly, they're missing on opportunities to personalize them and play to the actors’ strengths. Like these are really simple things they could do to differentiate the characters to make it more of a personalized production. 

I mean it’s totally fine and even a little charming if Yann is kind of a crappy skateboarder, lmao (I am not an expert). 

I forgot how much Isak leads into this conversation with Eva, trying to get the details. But that actually makes more sense to me because in this version, Lucas just sits down, asks if everything is okay, and then Emma confesses right away. If this has been weighing on her (which it has), she could have told one of her girls, who would have been a “safer” choice to tell? Maybe not Daphne, but Manon wouldn’t have cared and wouldn’t have any reason to tell Yann - ignoring Lucas’ real motivation at this point, he is also Yann’s BFF and might feel a sense of loyalty to him. Any way you look at it, not a great person to confess to. Isak was at least leading Eva a bit and encouraging her to open up, so it makes sense that she would cave and share with him in that moment.

I never noticed before but at the beginning of the original clip you can see Isak and Eva walking together, cute.

No offense to these actors but Lisa and Tarjei are the ones from the original I miss most. For all of the social media for Lucas and Emma that makes them seem like good friends, within the clips themselves I don't really feel like they're close.

Clip 2 - girls at lunch

On the one hand, I get why they picked episodes 7 and 8 to merge, gossip travels fast and I could see these events unfolding rapidly. On the other hand, there’s a lot of really weighty material in these episodes so it’s unfortunate.

So the big thing here is obviously that Alex hooked up with a girl! I saw the post about the actress confirming her as bi, so that’s terrific. What would be great is if this was integrated into future seasons - what if Kasper was a girl??? A deeply weird girl. I would be all kinds of into it. Or just keeping up the trend of her casually talking about girls, having her chime in to correct Vilde/Daphne’s ill-advised comments about lesbians, etc. 

This is also pretty big because she’s apparently out, at least to her friends? There’s not going to be a coming out season for her unless it’s for her family or something. So should they decide to do an Alex season or involve her sexuality in a future storyline, it would be from the perspective of someone who is already open and seemingly comfortable in her sexuality. I seriously hope they do some exciting stories with this piece of information.

Poor Daphne clinging to her delusions. Her enthusiasm about double dating with Emma, Alex, and Charles is so sad.

Were the jerseys in the previous episode at all? Manon being like “I can’t stand seeing you in this jersey” when it’s the first time Daphne’s worn it (though I agree, once is enough). I checked and Daphne wasn’t wearing one, she had on some cute sweaters. Did Charles have to like ... order one in her size ... and the shipping took a week ... because that was a big thing to overlook, costuming wise.

I was going to say that they could have shot the rest of the scene in the cafeteria, with Manon pointing out girls in there wearing the jerseys, but we got Manon taking Daphne by the hand so that was nice. And I guess it might be awkward for Daphne to realize this at the lunch table. 

OK, Emma launching herself at Yann for a makeout session during this heartfelt moment where Manon is trying to make Daphne feel better about a boy not liking her is rather insensitive. Read the room, Emma. (I know she’s trying to alleviate her guilt. It’s still pretty WTF.) 

I know that a lot of criticism has been directed at the remake sticking to closely to the original, and I’ve certainly done my share of this, but I’m really disappointed they choose to cut Vilde’s line about feeling like there was something wrong with her. It was so raw and heartbreaking and real and it’s too bad that of all the things they’ve been keeping the same, they got rid of that part. For example, the Alex and Lucas “flirting” could have been cut to make room for that line; that moment felt forced and stilted anyway, and it’s the exact thing they should be cutting if they’re having to compress the story for time.

Clip 3 - confronting Charles

I thought the whole bit about Vilde not having dignity was one of the less excusable Sana moments from S1 since it’s not directed at something Vilde did wrong or said to help her, but Alex snorting after Imane says it is probably an added sting for Daphne.

Charles is the fucking worst. I feel like he’s even worse than William at this point, tbh. He just seems smarmier and sleazier. I’m not saying the actor’s bad or anything, I just find this dude to have an extra layer of creep. William seemed kind of checked out of the Vilde confrontation, what is this interrupting my day, Charles seems more deliberately trying to twist the knife.

Uhhhh I guess it’s nice that Charles and Alex have more of a friendship and Alex can tease him about getting verbally shredded by Manon and all but he was also cool with standing there as his best bro told a girl that he fucked that she wasn’t pretty enough for him so frankly, Raptor Alex is the worst, too. 

I will go into Manon at the end but this moment was fine, it wasn’t my favorite thing she did this episode but I thought she showed more fire this week than in previous ones. 

I also missed the moment where Vilde called Sana out on throwing water in Ingrid‘s face and Sana replies that she had a good reason for that because it was a little reminder of that incident and foreshadowing to the reveal of why she did it. I get why they cut it but it might’ve been nice since I’ve seen more divided opinions on Imane and whether, in making Daphne less offensive and less willing to speak up for herself, they’ve made Imane seem unnecessarily rude.

But also, in watching the original clip, I think Vilde was inspired or bolstered by Sana’s comments not to confront William (who are you to tell me what to do, you just put me down, you’re telling me not to ruin things when you also caused a scene) and Noora‘s encouragement (Noora had previously comforted her and given her the idea to confront him). 

Clip 4 - The fight

Depending on your POV, the fourth wall breakage about a Norwegian tv show was either groan-worthy or cute. I thought it was sweet.

What kind of books do you think Daphne reads? I assume, much like Vilde, she reads exclusively The Secret, The Game and other self-help/relationship manuals.

I also liked Emma calling Manon “Booba” and giving her that little shoulder squeeze.

You know I never realized quite how much this would’ve been embarrassing for Vilde. Not just because of what William said, but because that was supposed to be her moment. Confronting William was supposed to be her proving to be a badass. Instead William cruelly put her down in public, and instead it was Noora who got to be the badass. You know, Noora, who in Vilde’s eyes is prettier, thinner, and cooler than she is, and who William instantly has an attraction to (not that Vilde got to see this). Vilde’s words didn’t land a blow to William at all, but Noora managed to leave William speechless. He didn’t put Noora down, it was Noora he was impressed with. So even when the girls are like good job, Noora, about this epic moment that Vilde didn’t see because she had to walk off in shame and hurt, Vilde’s empowering moment was snatched away from her. Ouch.

Manon was a boss in this fight. I kind of hate the term “mama bear” but that’s what came to mind here.

The fight itself went on for too long, Manon’s excellence aside. It also made me think that a physical fight inside the school would be a more serious deal than a fight outside of it, in the sense that teachers/adults are definitely going to notice. IDK how French school works but at my high school everyone involved would be hauled off to the principal’s office right away.

Clip 5 - Emma on the steps

The bit with Emma being called a whore on Facebook - I wouldn’t say that’s a NICE touch, but it adds to the aspect of social media being used for bullying. 

Yeah Ingrid is straight up intimidating. Manon is like a little mouse beside her. But lmao at Sarah immediately folding when Manon stood up.

I did like Ingrid stepping in front of Sarah. That’s her girl.

THEIR INSTAGRAM POSTS ARE SO DRAMATIC. JESUS.

Clip 6 - Manon comforting Emma

The scene was cute, especially Emma starting to sing along.

I legit do not care what anyone ships but I’m so ????? at how people could ship Manon and Charles at this point except by already being a Noorhelm fan and having the knowledge that they are a future couple. Because like ... if you were watching this not having seen the original show, Charles’ role has to been to be a jerk to a girl he slept with and spoil this lovely moment between two friends in order to deliver some rapey as fuck dialogue about how No is a Yes in waiting. WTF. I don’t want to get into the discourse but he is deeply creepy here! 

I would not be surprised if Blurred Lines is Charles’ cheer-up song of choice.

I kind of laughed about Manon watching House of Cards because isn’t House of Cards considered a prestige show, Spacey scandal aside? I watched several seasons of it; although it is like a political soap opera, I thought it was supposed to be kind of an award bait. It doesn’t seem that weird that Manon would watch it even if she’s not a TV person, lol. But maybe it is, I don’t know! I thought Suits was more of a sort of guilty pleasure procedural but I’ve never seen that show, so maybe my perception is all wrong.

Clip 7 - Daphne’s extraordinary meeting

Alex’s hair is indeed very pretty. Nice job.

Soooo this scene.

In the original, while Vilde tells the story about Ingrid and Jonas, the camera stays on a close-up of Eva’s miserable, guilty face while memories of what happened flash by in her mind. In the remake the camera focuses a lot on Daphne as she’s telling the story, with some shots of the group, and only cuts to Emma for a few short moments. The result is that this scene is much less emotionally effective. Yes, I already know the story, I know the twist, perhaps that matters. But I’m not deep in Emma’s pain. You really feel it with Eva, how her past is coming back to haunt her and how her mistakes are being exposed in front of her new friends against her will, and she probably feels like she deserves it. When I watched the original scene, I felt gutted for her. Here the emphasis is on Daphne’s judgmental face as she tells a story that she’s not personally involved in. That creates an emotional disconnect. This is the moment that should make us understand Eva’s behavior over the season even further, this is the moment that should explain the mysterious feud with Ingrid, this is a defining moment for Emma’s character and it’s not hers.

I do like that Daphne seem almost like she’s appealing to Manon by saying that people should know not to steal boyfriends, because that is the kind of thing that feminist Manon would be strictly against. Although obviously the attempt backfired.

Also lol at them working on the party “for months” it’s been one month since you even formed the squad! Though I do think it’s implied Daphne has been working on it for longer, and that she doesn’t want her pet project to be ruined.

The bit about Imane saying you stand for your friends “even when they don’t deserve it" was added from what I can tell; I think that’s a decent part though it might kind of be unnecessary, like sometimes less is more, the point is still there even without it, we get that Daphne just messed up. It’s not a huge sin or anything but there are a few occasions where I think the dialogue has been too on the nose (like Yann being all WOW SO MUCH TRUST BETWEEN US right after Emma cheated).

I do like Alex comforting Emma. I think Alex is a little more OK with confrontation then Chris was. Chris was a little flustered and didn’t know quite how to respond in the original, and we later saw that sometimes she struggled with how to be there for her friends, and Alex seems a little more chill with open displays of supporting her friends. She’s a very chill character in general.

Clip 8 - Yann and Emma in the skatepark

Time to talk about fragility.

When I think of Skam at its best, that is something which comes to mind. Not fragility of storytelling, but fragility in its emotions. Stripping away all the bullshit that you encounter in everyday life that leads you to put on a mask and say hollow words, as well as cutting out all the bullshit that you see in 90% of teen dramas and TV shows that go for noise and overblown, nonsensical emotions in order to produce drama, and just letting the characters say something real to each other. It’s not just about characters being sad, but being vulnerable. To be vulnerable means you can be easily broken. Fragile.

Not just Noora in the wake of her assault, but Noora telling Vilde about the nutritional benefits of potatoes as a way of talking about Vilde’s eating disorder, because to address the subject outright is too much. Not just Isak falling to the ground in tears, but Isak trying to talk around and delay his coming out to Jonas, turning it into a guessing game, because if Jonas rejects him or says the wrong thing, it would shatter him. Not just Sana crying alone in her room, but Sana writing a text to her friends explaining how much she feels she doesn’t fit in and asking her friends to forgive her.

And I heavily associate that concept with Eva’s season in particular. Every moment with her feels like we are with someone whose vulnerability is right there on the surface. Her old friends now hate her, her boyfriend seems to be keeping secrets from her, she’s struggling in school, her mom isn’t there and doesn’t know about her life, she just doesn’t know who she is. Think about how delicate a moment is the end of episode 2, when Eva is upset and can hear the boys laughing from another room, not caring, and she sees that Noora has accepted her friend request. A tiny, tiny gesture like that feels enormous. This really mundane thing because powerful because the show has demonstrated how Eva’s fragility, how much this friend request means to her.

The best scenes of Skam France, IMO, and the aspect has been working for me personally, is Daphne. And in a lot of ways, that is because she is fragile. We can see her hurt coming a mile away even if we hadn’t seen S1 before - because we can tell how much Charles means to her and how she is nothing to him. She is really, really fucking vulnerable when she puts herself out there for someone to love only to get rejected. She is vulnerable when she sends Charles a topless picture and when she tries to win back his attention. She is vulnerable when she tries to stand up for herself only to get put in her place. The show has done a good job with the actress and with demonstrating that raw, realistic pain.

Where I don’t feel that fragility is with Emma. Or Yann. Who knows if we’ll feel it with Lucas, with his upcoming parental woes and confession to Emma. But Emma is the focus of the season, and that’s a problem.

Some of it is in the acting, personally, and some of it is the writing. I know a lot of people like Emma and even prefer her to Eva because of her self-confidence, but I’m not a big fan and I think part of it is that her attitude and essence don’t work as well with the material. Like it feels less like a teenage girl having all her insecurities and mistakes bared. Again, it’s not just about Emma being sad. We have seen her sad. I don’t find her as fragile. 

Another example from this episode: not focusing on Emma when hearing the true story of what happened with Ingrid. Eva’s vulnerability was the focus of that scene. We could not get away from her haunted face as she had to relive her past regrets. We missed a chance to follow how much the Ingrid incident has broken Emma.

Another non-Emma example: omitting Vilde’s line about feeling something is wrong with her and knowing she shouldn’t feel that way, an incredibly raw, wounded line we didn’t hear from Daphne.

There are several other key scenes where I think some aspect of the production has undermined a potentially vulnerable moment - what sometimes seems like the overuse of music, condensed conversations with less room for silences to speak for themselves, camera work that keeps us at a distance. Also some times where it has worked, too, I’m not saying there are no emotional moments like this, and I’m not saying that it needs to follow the original in these exact ways. But it’s a repeat issue. 

This is not to say every character has to be troubled and vulnerable, by the way. But - this is a show about being young and dealing with problems. Vulnerability is vital in our ability to empathize with these characters. These are kids getting their first taste of adult problems and not knowing how to deal with them, they should be fragile. Almost all of the best coming of age films, books, and TV shows excel at depicting vulnerability. It doesn’t matter whether it’s French or Norwegian, youthful fragility is universal (and if not then why the fuck are you making a show about teenagers and their feelings).

Anyway, this scene.

This is an angry conversation.  Sure I know Yann is upset. But I don’t feel that personal fragility coming from him. I have seen it before at time - like when Emma came over while he was playing video games with the boys, she made to leave, and he asked her several times to stay. Other times we’ve missed that vulnerability from him - for instance, when Jonas asked if Eva wanted a break, he genuinely seemed kind of fearful that she would say yes. When Yann asked Emma, he was throwing it in her face, and didn’t really seem afraid until she walked away and he gave her a dramatic speech. 

Like Yann just skateboards up to her and doesn’t have much patience for what she says. He seems pissed. And hey, maybe that is how he expresses vulnerability, you could certainly make a case for it. But the acting and directing didn’t really make me feel it at all. It just feels like he’s angry (understandably). 

However, Yann is also such a jackass here, jeeeeez. Obviously I can’t know for sure because I don’t speak French, but even his tone of voice to me sounds like he’s making fun of her. And of course he has to go on about her stupid parties and her friends, when I think Jonas seemed to mostly go for the idea that she doesn’t know what she wants. It wasn’t that Eva’s friends were dumb, it was that she changed who she was and what she wanted based on who she was with. But Yann seems to be mocking her specifically for trying to throw those parties and making fun of her friends. He's really aggravating and almost seems to resent that she’s no longer fitting into the image of what he wants his girlfriend to be. I do think Jonas did say something that cut Eva to the bone, but I don’t think he was trying to make fun of her. He was angry but he did seem vulnerable himself, not as much as Eva, but it was evident.

I do think Emma is being vulnerable here, moreso than we’ve seen her in some other scenes, but overall she doesn’t really have that vibe for me. It’s probably more effective for people who are fans of her character.

The last shot of Yann smashing his skateboard into the ground is a dramatic TV moment. The last shot of Eva sitting by herself, tiny against the skate park murals, is a fragile moment.

General Comments:

This was a really big week for Manon. The scenes were a little hit and miss for me. I think Manon lacks the withering disdain to really nail scenes like telling off Charles, but is stronger when she’s in full on angry protector mode, like during the fight or standing up to Sarah and Ingrid. She did finally make a much stronger impression with all of her big moments.

The moments where Alex ogles Lucas don’t really work for me and I wish they’d be cut to make room for other things, but you know how it could work? If Alex and Lucas form some kind of friendship later on, gay dude/bi girl solidarity.

There was a lot of social media this week after the big events, like Manon telling off Charles, the fight, etc. and it was like a flurry of vagueposting and flinging shade all over the place. I kinda feel like it’s too much, lmao? But I also kinda think teenagers are overly dramatic on Instagram.

Because they combined episodes seven and eight, several scenes are missing from the original, for example Jonas and Eva in her bedroom while Eva texts P-Chris, Eva and Isak in her room after Jonas finds out, and Eva arguing with her mom. It’s possible some of these moments like the Isak or mom scenes could come in later, like I guess they could have Emma and Lucas hugging it out this week. I did miss that scene because it was an important moment for their friendship (also fragile...) and more painful when we learned what Isak did. I’m not feeling the friendship between Lucas and Emma that much on screen and that could have helped. However, I do understand why these where the scenes they cut.

Personally I think having time limits to the French episodes is a strong case for doing more comprehensive rewrites, but blah blah it’s in the contract blah blah.

I was pretty nitpicky this time around but it was not a bad episode, there was a lot going on. 

I sure hope someone did a parody of Yann spiking his skateboard to this song.