This was the goofiest episode of the show yet lmao. There's no way in absolute hell that a high school would allow a student to put on a deeply personal play about like 6 of the students there with Broadway-level production design and extremely mature content (and there's no way most of the students would even attend that play) but who gives a shit, that was a blast. I was also laughing my ass off at Cassie's "scary" face at the end I love when this show embraces how dumb and over the top it is
Yeah, despite being tonally disimilar, it's a lot like Sex Education. The emotional core is realistic, but depiction of teen culture & social mores are about 25% more insane than real life.
Yeah this show doesn't depict American public high school at all how it actually is, but 99% other teen shows don't either. The only show i've ever seen that depicted high school spot on perfectly was American Vandal.
I loved Sydney's acting this episode. The scene of Cassie practicing her fake smile in the restroom? Amazing. The scene of her submitting to Nate? Terrifying. She's so goddamn good at this.
Honestly, I can't believe I'm agreeing with Nate, but that last scene was painfully homophobic, and Lexi was super out-of-pocket all episode. Honestly, the fact that Lexi is willing to torpedo all positive relationships in her life for the sake of her passions, even if they're as self-indulgent and pretentious as this play, does add necessary depth to her character.
with the caveat that I am an extremely casual viewer of the show (as in I have seen less than half the episodes I’m pretty sure haha), up until that football scene it seemed like everyone was enjoying it. Even seemed to maybe get the two girls thinking about reconciling their friendship. I assume I’m missing context about Nate being so mad about that scene though. Is he repressed/in the closet and trying to compensate? He def seemed very concerned with people thinking he might be gay. Also I assumed that the whole scene was meant to be making fun of the idea that the football team/players are gay or at least homoerotic with each other (something I definitely remember being said in the past in high school as well)….I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be taking it as a serious attack on the football players or if it was parodying that trope.
I thought they way they edited the episode between the play and Fez was a mistake. It created tension of course, but I was so worried about the Fez situation that I found myself not really caring about the play because I was just antsy for them to get back to Fez's house. And then it turned out to all be set-up for whatever happens next week. But yeah it seems like Fez is fucked. At least one of him and Ashtray are probably gonna die, which would be a massive bummer.
The show has kind of made it ambiguous as to whether or not Nate is actually Bi/Gay. He used a Grindr account to catfish Jules & blackmail her, but it's never explicitly clarified whether Nate already had the account, or made it explicitly to stalk Jules. However, between the dick pics in his phone, and discomfort with locker room nudity, it's heavily implied that he's supressing some male desire. The working out scene was totally hillarious at first, because I think Lexi intended it to be a critique of how masculinity-worshipping culture is contradictorily both reactionary & homoerotic. For example, the people who are most obsessed with protecting "traditional maculinity" model themselves after the roman ideal of maculinity, but ignore the fact that the romans were actually super gay. That's super funny, and worthy of satire, but I don't think the audience took it that way. I think they saw it as a takedown of Nate's character instead of toxic masculinity as a whole, which is why Maddy enjoyed it so much. She thought it was funny to publicly out Nate, which is less-than-woke tbh.
i'm guessing ashtray knifes the informant prompting the swat or whatever to raid the house and kill him
My Predictions: I think Faye's gonna try to help Fez, but accidentally make things worse. Ash is gonna end up getting himself killed. He's gonna need to be written out of the show anyways, because he's aging so much quicker than the show is being produced. Rue's going to be confronted by Laurie. I have a feeling that will be the season cliffhanger. Rue & Jules will try to reconnect, but Jules will have to admit to cheating on Rue and break her heart all over again. Cassie's going to have a full-on public meltdown, and it will be glorious.
i dont think they'll kill off fez but i think he'll end up in prison. hes probably the shows most popular character.