皮囊第七季

不再年轻。看完这6集感觉很无力，很抑郁。

生命和生活在英语里同为一词。生命可以成长，可以老去；生活可以如盛花灿烂，可以如落红不堪。这一季的他们，恰若落地繁花，最张扬的青春已经成为过去，未来如同蒙住了的脏抹布，不能闻，不可视。

剧已经烂了，以致于我的不开心。抑郁，却是因为我的眼前也是一块脏抹布。

五六季只强忍着看了一集，受不了爆炸头和异装癖这些小losers的中二生活，觉得简直是蠢。
无比想念爱翻白眼儿的Michelle和到处打架的Cook，想念Tony的裸体床单，想念Cassie说「lovely」时候的笑，想念第二季结束时葬礼上的礼花，想念Cook的小虎牙和Effy的蓝色眼睛。

然后有一天，听说你们长大了。

【DUST】
开头，Effy被女主管吆来喝去盗用idea的时候，我一丁点也不同情她。因为我知道这是Effy，她会用她的方式让所有人payback。
于是我十分欣慰并且不出所料的看到了Effy利用追求她的小矮子的数据倒卖股票当上了优秀交易员，并且成功的搞上了大boss搞走了女主管。
长大了的Effy一如既往的所向披靡四处通途，似乎能让人忘记了她曾崩溃在阳光下的草地上，把自己反锁在浴室里手腕上的血铺满半个地板。
她有了车有了司机，有了租伦敦大公寓的钱，Naomi看着她陪客户赌博时年老的客户搭上Effy肩膀的手说「你竟然不觉得恶心」时，Effy终于融入了这个成年人的世界，金钱，股票，期货，债券，伦敦金融街，男上司，老客户。
只是Effy的眼睛还是那么蓝，她不明白这不再是那个她仅凭自己就能压倒一切的世界，这个世界里，有欺骗和利用，也有法律和规则——尽管可笑，可是你得遵守它。
其实我没想到这个故事会这样结尾——我是说从金融街开始——没有想到那个谁都瞧不起的女孩会乖乖的变成一个交易员，我有那么一丁点儿想念曾经cares about nothing的Effy，尽管我知道这可能才是合理的结局。
至于最后Effy的熟悉的笑容，虽然看起来没什么不同，但是总有些什么是再也找不回来了的。这话是废话，但是我找不到更好的表达。
这次她没赢，真令人沮丧。那个queen一样的Effy竟然没赢。
flame to dust，好像游戏里的利剑拿到现实世界只是一串代码，这另人沮丧。

【FAME】
如果说有什么比Effy成为交易员更让人哭笑不得的，那大概就是Cassie成了咖啡厅女招待吧。
她穿着暗蓝色的工作服，头发梳了起来，住在一栋乱糟糟的公寓里，甚至跟别人说「我不怎么抽烟」。
不知道为什么，我一直对Cassie在刚出场时手腕上当作手链来戴的一个大兔子塑胶发圈念念不忘，好像是粉色或者橘色，款式就是中国的街边小店里最常见的那种一个塑胶的兔子脑袋。Cassie戴着那个发圈，胡乱的往嘴里塞illegal的药片，她站在长椅上，假装要飞起来，她冲所有人笑，说「Safe」和「Lovely」。
那是我在头两季中最喜欢的角色，我不知道她为什么能那么美好而无辜，就像她衣服上的小鸭子和手上的发圈一样。
虽然如今，她只是将「我曾经试图将自己饿死」一笔带过的当一件奇闻异事讲出来。
而她在想要逃离海边的狼狈的父亲的同时，也在逃离曾经那么狼狈却美好易碎的自己。
于是再没有听到她说一句「Lovely」。
也开始有男人为她打架了，也开始有人注意到她的美了，我不合时宜的想起来Sid，Sid你还记得Cassie么？
我总幻想着Cassie在街头能遇到谁，Tony，Michelle，或者Sid。
或者Sid。
我大概还是那种学不会明白旧日情怀都是档案馆里的碎纸片的人，拎出来看可能会沾一手灰，并且并不能够继续。
Cassie一句话带过的东西太多了，好在她还是会站在窗口，假装要飞。

【DOWN】
Cook是我一开始特别讨厌的一个角色，不知道为什么，就是讨厌他，看见他就想按快进。
后来有一集我忘了什么前因后果，Naomi跟Cook说「You just live a bit harder than everybody else does」，于是我很没出息的又看剧看哭了。
可能讨厌Cook是因为我在他身上看到了自己的影子：因为太在乎所以怕遭遇伤害与背叛所以装作什么都不在乎，最后搞得大家都讨厌他的什么也不在乎而让他陷入新一轮循环那就是索性把事情搞得更糟糕，到最后明明全身心的碎的七零八落却还是一副so what的样子。
a bit harder，哈，a bit harder。
我唯一觉得让我满意的结局，竟然在Cook身上，终于看到他露出了「I care」的神情，终于看到他选择了一次逃避，然后是闷闷的英腔画外音。
我知道你不会再把事情搞得更糟，我知道你终于有了恐惧。
其实想说一句特别矫情的话，有了恐惧，也就有了爱的能力了不是么。

于是血肉横飞的现实世界，狠狠地甩给中二病们一记响亮的耳光。

第一代skins的演员们和我年龄相当，那段青春自然也是skins陪我度过，片头曲是我那时的手机铃声，今日再听，依旧百感交集，泫然欲泣。

第一代的片头曲清澈简洁，视频迷幻中不乏青涩质朴；而Emily的第二代，片头制作只得上代的皮毛。

到了Mini的第三代，电音里多了些压抑沉重；剧情和拍摄中刻意为之的感觉愈发严重，虽然内心十分偏爱Mini，也没将这两季看完。

Mini是身量高挑，明艳俏丽的典型苏格兰美女，整脸的雀斑吓坏了不少国人；大笑的时候嘴角快碰到耳朵，倒也别有一番风味。

她外表时髦、强势，有时口出恶言，肩膀宽四肢长，想来打架也寻不到敌手。

皮囊不过装饰，Mini的内心胆怯脆弱，高兴起来跳舞，简直像是猴子在杂耍，透着一股傻劲。

承蒙抬爱，现实生活中曾有数人称赞我与她相像，可我不认为他们了解我，或是Mini。

现在有了最终季，暂时还不得时间观看，也心存恐惧——我们一起放肆过的青春，只怕和太阳下的泡沫消散的一样迅速。

生离死别、自食其力、人情世故、有没有把你们眼中无知又无畏的光芒抹去？

一定有。

皱纹从不可怕，可怕的是人心。



后来在伦敦念书，落地一个月之后便以为朋友庆生的名义前往布里斯托。

和想象中不大一样，这座城市算是英国的大都市之一，也比较工业化。市中心看起来敞敞亮亮，全不似英格兰其他城市小家碧玉般的做派。白天日光充足，干净且宁静；有教堂，有涂鸦，有迷你又现代的码头，有波光粼粼的一小片海；到了晚间，酒精流氓们纷纷出动，他们凑到你耳边赞你美丽，手指停在你腰间，想要和你跳舞；喝到烂醉的人则不停地想要挑逗抚摸你，粗鲁者直接动手动脚。幸运的话，他们中的一些人总能get laid，其余的便在呕吐物与咒骂声中醉到日上三竿。

天佑英格兰，这一年的留学生活让我见识到了五花八门、神出鬼没般的搭讪方式。

扯远了，回到伦敦不久，官方便公布Mini这一代要拍摄final party，诚邀各地的小伙伴们前往布里斯托助兴。

我和班上的德国姑娘都很想去，无奈课程安排，两人的英语那时又都是半斤八两，也没办成railway card，车票钱对于穷学生不算小数目，最终没能成行。

而我从布里斯托带回来的巫女扫帚在离开OPAL 4的时候也被我无奈丢入了垃圾桶。



还记得我们最爱的、总是找不到人生平衡的Cassie吗？她后来就读于剑桥的皇后学院，现在已经毕业，在GOT中赢得了一个长线角色。

真好。

这篇写完，我会把电话铃声再次换回第二季的片头曲。

青春总要散场，我也无法生活在回忆中，但铃声响起时内心有愉悦和钝痛，这样也好。

这样也好。

       第七季编剧正一神经病，把naomi和effy俩人性格调换了，堕落太妹effy忽然玩转金融界，好端端的高材生naomi弄成单口相声+癌症，韩剧吗？这么狗血剧情！！！干嘛emily到美国不跟着一起去那生活，不是说：“Really I'd die for you..”吗？却留在伦敦独自die！！！天天傻B颓废喝酒吃大麻，神经病剧情！！！

    但为了这对最爱的拉拉还是继续追剧~
   
    由第一季首播到现在第七季，看着第一部接触的英剧就快剧终，真心舍不得，年龄相仿，感觉和她们一起长大，没想到她们的未来是这么的狗血，真痛心，青春那么苦逼，长大也那么无奈~

     说实话论我对skins的好感仅限于第一二季。
     作为一个忠实的弃剧者，skins的好感来源于我根本不想猜出来下一集的剧情发展会是怎么样。记得我们大一没有网络的时候寝室的四个人挤在一起看盗版碟上的skins，画质很渣但是我们还是看的津津有味。有些电视剧你会看见它的集数就果断弃之但是skins我只恨它为什么那么短，短到我刚开始喜欢sid它就不见了。
     这孩儿我想多唠叨两句，oh，sid，你第一季结尾那首wild world真是把我都唱化了，脏兮兮傻乎乎24小时顶着避孕套帽子的形象真的迷老娘啊就是喜欢这种典型的英国屌丝男啊为毛啊，可惜演了这部剧这孩儿就不知去向，你不去演个啥倒是去唱歌个也行啊那磁性的小声线简直了！！！！！！
      好，收回状态。
      其实skins一点都不淫荡好么，尤其是cassie，她一直给我的感觉都是pure的，而切是深深的pure。刚才看有个影评说这剧前后不太接，我倒不觉得可能也是我刚重看了一遍第一季，不然我铁定也把前面的剧情都忘了，cassie的爹是个自由画家，爹妈异常开放，如果没记错这剧第一次露点的就是她妈躺在沙发上让他爹画，cassie的小弟弟也还在襁褓中，编剧后来让cassie对拍她的那个小萌男说有个夏天她企图饿死她自己也是呼应前文的吧。好，继续回到淫荡这个词上。每个人都有生理需求，吃饭睡觉和性都是，我估计人喜欢回避性这话题好想应该是这玩应自己不好解决要他人协助，出现其他人就免不了出现背叛，这么一项基本欲求受限多不好，人得多难受，于是人性的弱点和灰暗面多数人就归功于了性，好多题材就都来源于此，skins就是把这个来的直接了点。不然我还真不太信上高中有男生不看黄片不撸管，说到这点我就想起几个月前去bilbili上看的一个叫关于紫薇的一切的视频，里面就问了好多大学生是否自慰这个问题，有个男童鞋坚决的否认了自己曾经有过，否认的相当坚决搞得看视频的我都为他捏了把汗。坦诚这东西就是比正经高了一个逼格。这点我很是赞同。skins讲的事肯定不会发生在我们身边，但是我们周围逛夜店聊陌陌的人也不少，人家英国有人家的方式，我们中国也有中国的方式，归根结底都差不多。但是人家拍出来就是skins咱拍出来就是小时代，我们除了泪目就只能咬牙切齿的说“哼，万恶的资本主义”。
       哼，万恶的资本主义赐我一个sid吧!

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.