#B's analyses of media: HBH edition

[icga-blog]

Heartbreak High Season 1 - Ep1

20:30–21:10

The SLT kids are leaving the first ever class in little groups (mostly pairs and trios). Four people leave alone: Amerie, that runs away before everyone else to hide eat lunch in the bathroom; Malakai, that tries to talk to Amerie unsuccessfully and is the new kid and don't know anyone else; Harper, that visibly is not with Missy and Sasha (the people she was hanging out with at this point in the story), going to her locker on her own; and Cash, the last one to leave the classroom and someone that earlier we saw around other eshay-type on school ground, but usually is not showed with people his age. Harper stops to get/put something in her locker, and Cash (that was walking behind, but not apparently planing to talk/interact with Harper), stops in his way for a second, try to get her attention ("Hey"). Once Harper looks at him, with no other reaction, he hesitad and then asks "You okay?". She stares at him for a second and answer "Fuck right off", which he processed to do (with his head down, he lowkey shrinks and look really hurt). Harper go back to her locker, but still looks to the direction that Cash went to check. Then she slams her locker shut and the scene cut.

Now let's analyze a 40-second scene, shall we?

This lives rent-free in my mind since I re-watched for the first time. To be fair, it is such a minor thing that by the time we find out Cash was there during Harper post-music-festival-trauma, I already forgot about the existence of this scene. The thing that stuck to me when I re-watched it, is that (if I am not misremembering things), outside being in the same general environment, Cash and Harper have 3 scenes together in season 1: this one, Harper+Amerie buying drugs from him before the music festival and the car scene.

Amused me a little that I never notice how little those 2 interacted when I am deeply aware of how little Malakai and Cash, or Quinni and Missy, interacted. Also, Cash literally don't say a word to Amerie in season 2 (which makes sense when you think of their last conversation in season 1), and I don't think Malakai and Sasha ever talked. Also, Ant and Darren are never in 3 meter of one another, when they literally gave each other hand jobs off-screen. For an assembly cast, these guys don't interact a lot with one another.

So, back to the subject: Harper (who have an addicted dad and because of that, if I am interpreting a handful of implications right, have a problem with/don't like drugs) knew of Cash just as most of the characters seem to, aka, as a drug dealer. She bought drugs from him. Then she woke up in a car, with people she might not even recognize and Cash, the drug dealer.

I am not giving my opinions in the car scene right now, but let me just say: only meaningful interaction she had with this man was he saving her life (or keeping her physical health and a bit of her emotional/mental health, depend on where you think that car was headed I guess) when the stars align to make it possible and not a singular second earlier. Actually, a few minutes later.

1 week after that, she is at school, and she knows he is there too. They see each other in the assembly. They might even see each other in a classroom before SLT. They surely saw each other during SLT. They do not even nodded at each other. He doesn't recognize that she is alive, but have her hair (that he saw someone pulling) shaved off. She doesn't recognize he is still there, even if that 2 out of the 3 other danger guys in that car know for a fact that Cash set her free. He doesn't recognize that she could get he in a lot of trouble (even if she does not have the proof to get he in jail for long), but she didn't it yet. She doesn't recognize that he could get in a lot of trouble for doing what he did, for saving her. He doesn't recognize that he is a big part of her trauma. She doesn't recognize that he exists. They don't recognize that neither of them had any idea if the other one was alive before today.

Until he sees her without company. She is in a very open public space, but she is also clearly alone. Just then he stops and look at her (up and down, she is there) his eyes wide open, his jaw kind of dropped, (she is alive) he stares at the back of her head, adjusting his grip in the backpack as to prepare himself for... something. After a breath, he says:

"Hey". The music dies without ever fading. The talking in the background remains.

What else there's to say? She turns to face him and stares (blank, is Harper actually there when she looks at Cash, her big blue eyes blank, the corner of her mouth pull down as they don't know what else to do, her hair not really buzzed, but also really shaved). He blinks at her. She realizes who he is, but doesn't answer. I love how, after a beat, she looks mad, in all the senses of the word. Harper is furious and going crazy at once, her posture is the one of a wild animal.

"You okay?" 2 words, nothing more. He cannot look at her face for more than a minute at a time. His eyes shift around so easily. She also cannot look at his face for a second there. She holds her locker door and look first at his neck and then to the ground before saying "Fuck right off". She finishes it looking at his face tho, she needs him to take it seriously. Harper doesn't have a particularly expressive face in most of the first season, but her voice tells us a bunch. She tries to look angry, but she just sound raw and tired. Her posture is tired too.

Cash immediately looks away from her, locks/clenches his jaw, and kind of turns his shoulders inside. It isn't the "I want to look smaller" look he has sometimes, but still isn't the perfect posture/broad shoulders/hypermasculine look that he cares most of the time that he isn't around Nan or Darren. Then he put his head down (looking at the floor and everything) and never talks directly to Harper again. Actually, he might avoid speaking in her presence in general.

Even in the second season, she speaks with him first.

She says "Fuck right off" and he does to an almost funny degree. Also: no shame to Harper, I would never want to see his face again (his presence in the school might have been enough to give me an anxiety attack, actually, even if he was my savior and I still didn't know he was still walking with the same group at that point). It is still noticeable, to me, that there were beats in between she noticing it was Cash and she asking him to go away, just enough time to give me the feeling that part of the problem lies in Cash's question.

"You okay?" WHAT DO YOU THINK MOTHERFUCKER?????????? WHY ARE YOU ASKING IT NOW????????? He will send her the video afterward, which means he had her number all along (or went out of his way to get it after months of not doing anything while she ignored his ass), but it doesn't seem like he ever sent a text to check if she was alive after the music festival. He didn't call her. He didn't go to her house (he was the address of Darren's dad's house, even if Darren clearly does not live there most of the time; where ever he found that, he could find Harper's address). He... He did not even think before stopping the girl he was invited to gang-rape, and the only thing his brain come up with at the moment was "you okay?"

Anyway, I am getting out of the tract to my point here. The facts are:

Harper did not know how to deal with this situation, as any other girl would if put in this situation, so she copes with it in harmful ways (and here the harm if to herself). She also was mad at a lot of people, some more justifiable than others, and did not know where to put all her pain and anger. Cash is a bit stupid about the aftermath (for lack of better word) of the car scene, and it has consequences for Harper that she doesn't deserve. He is also a deeply traumatize 18 year old.(Also, I don't think he could have helped before he did it, back in the music festival day. I fully believe that was his only opportunity to get her out of that situation, I need you guys that believe otherwise to explain it to me as if I am a toddler). This scene exemplifies all of it very well, to 40 seconds of screen.

A little fun fact: In my native language, the dialogue goes "Hi." "Are you good/fine?" "Dude, go fuck yourself" (or "Dude, fuck you", both are valid translations)

Let me know if there is any specific scene you want to read me yap about!