Originally posted on my blog.

Brian’s song

WHAT the hell? Brian’s narrating this one? Oh hell nooooo. I do not like this. Bring back Angela! That was pretty much my reaction when I first saw this episode and realised it diverged from the usual format. The thought of being privy to the workings of Brian’s brain wasn’t appealing. And it didn’t help that as the episode begins, Brian is spying on Angela and her family via a telephoto lens. Typical creepy Krakow. Except this episode humanises Brian a bit more. We learn there’s more to his feelings for Angela than just teenage lust, and that he’s more than aware that he often acts like a jerk.

We are Brian

My new theory of Brian is that we often find him annoying because he encapsulates so many qualities we’d all like to think we don’t have: he’s uncool, he’s self-righteous, he’s selfish, and even when he knows he shouldn’t do something, that he’ll hurt someone, he does it anyway. Plus, when it comes to the girl he loves, he lets himself get kicked around. He sets himself up for heartbreak. He is a whole lot of pathetic, basically. A little too real.

But I have more empathy for Brian this time around. I loved re-watching this bittersweet episode and its insight into his soul, which is surprisingly poetic. When he observes that Angela’s hair smells “…like this orange grove we passed when I was eight on the way to see my grandmother.” Beat. “But I guess that’s just like her shampoo or whatever.” It’s not clear whether he knows how funny he is, but it is clear he’s capable of deep feeling. Shame his practical personality often gets in his way. It’s one reason Angela always finds him disappointing, but it’s probably a useful survival mechanism. School — heck, life — has been thoroughly underwhelming for Brian so far, and he doesn’t want to get his hopes up.

Angst and all that good stuff

This episode shows everything that MSCL does brilliantly: teen angst, unsatisfactory conversations full of subtext, a glimpse into the darker side of teenage alienation (Rickie’s tears are truly heartbreaking), and a demonstration of the fact that anticipation is so often anathema to a good time. I’m not sure any other teen show has portrayed a teenager coming to terms with his sexuality so openly, or made it seem so real. Still, I like to think in season two Rickie didn’t feel so alone in a crowd.

There are so many top-notch scenes: the bonding between Graaam and Brian, which I always kinda saw as foreshadowing a possible father-in-law/son-in-law relationship (no, really), Angela kind-of-but-not-really asking Jordan to the dance and his baffled response. (“There’s a dance?”), every scene with Rickie, and the scenes between Brian and Delia Fisher, from the time he realises they could have a relationship (“Maybe this is what people mean, when they talk about like, life.”) to the awful stuttering moment he crushes her hopes — and takes so LONG to do it.

Brian could have had a nice time with Delia, if he’d let his fantasy of him and Angela go. He’s too masochistic for that, though, and (surprisingly) too romantic. The selfishness of the teenagers is accurate, I think, and more honestly rendered than other shows. And yet it’s a bit romanticised too, enough to make it watchable. (To paraphrase what Angela says in the pilot about the school yearbook, if they made a show about what really happens, it would be a really upsetting show.)

Dancing lesson

I love this episode so much, and yet it gnaws my stomach, as I’m transported to the school dances (OK, discos) of my youth: how much they were hyped, and how disappointing they inevitably were. How I was always waiting for something exciting to happen, to make me feel good, but it so rarely did. How even when I was dancing my heart out, I felt like I was missing something. I had my own Delia Fisher moments, dancing through the pain of knowing no boy was ever interested in me, I didn’t have (m)any friends, I couldn’t cope with science and I wasn’t one of the pretty girls. Those moments were devastating.

Last time round, I projected those feelings onto Delia and Rickie, assuming their defiant shape-throwing to “What is Love?” was an act of bravado. This time round, I think it’s more than that. I think they’re choosing to not let the bastards get them down. I think they’re dancing for their lives. They’re choosing to be happy, even if it’s just for the length of a song. In doing so, they’re an example to Sharon, Jordan, Angela, and Brian, who all feel too disaffected or too dejected to even try to have fun. In the face of despair, and rejection, and the fear that you’ll always be left out, what else can you do but dance like nobody’s watching?

Whew. I’ve rambled on far more than I intended to and, I hope, far more than I will next week (although that is one of my top three episodes, so we’ll see) but I’d still love to hear your thoughts on this one. Leave a comment, write your own blog post, or get all social media about it — whatever works.