皮囊第七季

不是最早看skins，却也看了五年了，也是追过最长的一部剧了，也是看的第一部英剧。
记得第一次看这剧的时候，心里直呼，英剧竟然尺度这么大，后来才懂了一个别人讲的道理“英国面前，美国只是假开放。”
记得一辆公交风驰而过，将tony和他未讲完的话撞飞；
记得手里拿着水枪和药，在山顶公园长椅上翩翩起舞，想要自杀的cassie
记得"傻乎乎"的sid唱着wild world
记得chris和jal的生死恋，葬礼上的"Fuck It"
记得在纽约街道上奔跑的cassie
…………
记得依着门，却拉着手的naomi和emily
记得不屑世俗的cook大魔王
记得effy马路上对着呼啸而过的车辆大喊"I'm not afraid"
记得naomi的那句"I love you so much that it's killing me"
…………
记得rich从重金属到和grace的小清新
记得liv的种种辛酸，怒扇mini，和rich在grace墓前的蹦蹦跳跳
记得rich听到孩子啼哭声的那句"bye"
…………
现在，
看见两人在医院外，两个相依，只能听见风声和雪的声音
看见emily卷着身在naomi怀中哭泣，看见effy一个人背着墙流泪
然后看见从泰晤士河放眼望去的冬日伦敦景象
看见了和第二季结束一样effy神秘的一笑
…………
看见cass再也忍不住，落泪
看见cass那一张张美翻了的照片
再也听不见cass的wow，取而代之的是低压着的背景旋律
看见cass从父亲手中接过rueben
看见cass坐在伦敦公园的一把长椅上，就像布里斯托尔的那把长椅上
…………
看见cook手上那个cook的纹身
看见犹豫不知是否跳进泳池的cook
看见cook的嘶吼大喊
看见举枪不定的cook
看见最后在雪中越走越远的cook

直到最后一片白芒的雪
skins的词打在屏幕上，不再是黑屏后再出现的制作者名单
不是每一季结束后的演员名单
再上tweet上看看，E4的背景图片也已不是skins的宣传照
我才想起
skins真的就这样结束了

我爱skins，不论哪一集，那一代
记得刚看skins时，我什么都不知道，也不知道做什么
现在，有了目标，有了理想
不是想说“skins改变了我”之类的话
只是想说：Skins,见证了我的成长
或许这就是我喜欢看英剧的原因
当我多年以后的某一天再翻出她来看的时候
我会回想起当年的我有何感触，生活又是怎样
skins正是我对青春的一份寄托
累的时候，乏了的时候，可以拿出来说，她陪伴过我的青春
或许有些矫情
时间真的在改变我们
想想当初看skins我们的感受，现在呢？
想想当初看skins我们的模样，再看看现在。
不过
time's changing everyone？
NO
time HAS changed everyone.
AND more
time's still changing everyone
and
bye

总觉得这应该是一个像彼得潘一样永远不长大的电视剧，孩子们就这么一波一波的叛逆下去，延续着这样的叛逆青春。所以看到成熟的Eff和Cook，还有这部剧沉默，大众的剧情，让我觉得跟之前的几季格格不入。但是换个角度想想这可能也应该是这样了吧，青春不可能永无止境，人不能永不长大，最终我们还是要学着懂事，学着承担。

刚开始看第一季的时候真的不是很能接受，总觉得这种小痞子，满嘴脏话，堕落的电视剧不能接受。中途弃过几次。但是后来明白了。Skins就是这些孩子叛逆，任性，不管不顾的外衣。真正在皮囊底下的是他们各种各样的脆弱与伤痕。他们到底是需要关爱的孩子。他们用他们的友情，爱情在，相互温暖着彼此。但是这跟最后一集所叙述的skins的意义完全背离。

这一季里的Eff跟COOk都长大了，都事故了，但是最后还是没给他们一个好下场。豆娘还在旁边写贴了个“喜剧”的标签。。。最后看着cook离开的背影，真的觉得好心酸，想到之前他哭着说过为什么所有人都离开我，背叛我。那个时候真的希望这个孩子能有个好结果，找个爱他的姑娘，让他安定下来。但是最后黑心的编剧还是这么让他孤零零的走了。I just so sad that it ends like this.

Effy the same, others the same. As skins season is back, the same somehow is and isn't the exact description giving the circumstances do change as they always are.

 

There's always an Effy and the other in one's hearts. This is one thing doesn't change. Effy sits quite deep in thought in the middle of a room of the wasted, indifferent, independent the Effy who is observant and insightful of nature of things, and always sides with the truthful ones: friends with Naomi of the justice, with Pandora of the innocent, when everyone shuns in one way or other JJ's honesty, Effy is the only one that embraced it and returned with the same. Now though grown up, Effy still Effy, accasionally rises in defence for poor dom, spitting fire to the mean malice forces. She always stands up in moment like that, moment that a rightful decision need to be made, and on behalf of others and herself, she always made it right. Or she thought she did, with so much convinction that bring us all on board.

 

The others around her are necessarily complimentary reflections of the multiple facets in the same person. It's no surprise Naomi's now in a bad shape because she stays who she was, after all she's never been the normal kind of smart anyway, she's smart the way Effy is, her judgment piercing through the essence of things, tearing off masks faked by Effy and Cook, and love for who they really are behind the walls, the vulnerable Effy and tender Cook. She even shares Effy's fear, fear for true love that would hurt and kill, therefore she cheats on Emily the same way Effy fucks Cook instead of Freddie. For the unmistakenable alikeness, no wonder she and effy becomes close.

 

Yet it is their distinction that sets them apart. One of unyielding, the other flexible. The real world tends to favor the latter and leave the former beaten down, as it turns out. I am not sure which one should be accounted more lucky though. Probably sharing my doubt, there is Effy struggling in deep water, shifting between dreams and reality, between crazy dancing floor and big bad world of work. The fancy dance sequence is just a form of ideas, not necessarily happened for real, given that it's highly unlikely that she would still have streighth to go clubbing after an exalting day of work. But we have to give it up for that gesture, a hint at where she came from and still wanna be. Same old Effy, still the same, never change. But the brilliant of the show is how the inside struggle is subtly concealed. Instead of the cliche of pouring out emotions to appeal to the audience, it only suggests to mass of a turmoil underneath a tip of iceburg that being shown. "No one breaks my heart" is what Effy used to say. Rather it could be rephrased: no one sees my heart's breaking. The girl who thinks she knows it all but at times gets herself in situations she couldn't possibly handle. And this time again, she's slipping into a sprialing down without forseeing it.

 

No matter how Effy's story ends, it is about time. Time to have an end. Those young crazy and rebelious kids, full of attitude and character, coming to age, face their ends. It's better to end them tragically. After all, skins is all about dark and twisted. What is more beautiful than the beauty being ruined. The ruined beauty lives forever. Effy Stonem and the other, under one's skins. My skins.

有一句话送给导演编剧们，来形容我看了第七季的心情：
不作死就不会死。

第七季真的很烂。可是我还是没忍住给了四星。

我说它烂，不是因为它把我最喜欢的两个女人设定成一个送进监狱，一个永远孤独。也不是因为cook大王最后两集还要作死，搞了个让无数人忍不住骂鸟东西的结局。我当然知道成长是必须的，不是每个青春期少男少女都会永远喝酒抽大麻读萨特光屁股一堆烦恼又无忧无虑无所畏惧。我也理解最终季拍成这样的纪念意义和良苦用心。

我只是觉得它搞砸了。它的前六季是靠着青春，靠着叛逆恶心凌乱，靠着纯洁自由而让人穷追不舍，可是这一季，它只剩下无奈了。它的故事讲得衣冠楚楚却乱七八糟，完全不符合英剧气质，失去了最大的优点。

给四星五星的，有几个不是因为脑补能力足够强，怀旧情绪太泛滥？


但是至少，它给了Eff，Cass和Cook一个完整的成熟世界。它表达了一种成长和妥协，同时给人物设置了新的弱点和矛盾，一种成人式的困难和成人式的解决方法，但却仍然保持青春期的视角（主人公内在的视角）去理解这些问题。从这个意义上来说，第七季似乎也总要拍成这种样子。因为我们都想不出来更好的样子了。

无论怎样长大，无论变成什么样的人，人总是会后悔的。

无论Skins最终季拍成什么样子，我们总是会一边叫骂一边流泪。

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.