TV Review: Skins 6.2, 'Rich'

rating: 3.5

Well, that was a thing. This episode, I can tell you now, will be one that will divide the heck out of the fan base, and rightly so. It was a bit of a shark-jump, a bit too much like the second series episode where Tony got all better from his problems, and a mess of strangeness, and the last scene€yeesh. Sadly this episode also continues a trend I€™d hoped we€™d left behind with the previous two generations. But we€™ll have to get to that next week. For now, here€™s my thoughts on this episode. We begin with Rich (Alexander Arnold) and Alo (Will Merrick) playing together in their little band along with a female drummer whose name I didn€™t catch. They play and argue a bit and then Rich goes out to try and visit Grace (Jessica Sula). He is, of course, banned from visiting by her father, but then he gets a phone call from her. Yes, she€™s apparently woken up and is urging him to find a way to get in to see her. He eventually does, and the two are about to start going at it hammer and togs when her father walks in. Remember this scene for the end of the episode and try to imagine what her father saw. Anyhow, it turns out her father has plans to move her to a clinic in Switzerland for specialized treatment, which didn€™t really seem necessary, but ok. Rich flips out a bit at this news and after a minor argument with his parents (his mother helpfully pointing out to him that young love isn€™t really), goes to the Blood family house, trying to contact Grace€™s father. As he does, he stumbles over a milk bottle with a note to discontinue delivery, indicating that they€™ve already left for Switzerland and leaving me amused that this plot reveal would never work in the USA where we buy our milk in supermarkets. Rich then climbs in through an open window and starts wandering around the place. He smokes, leaves finger prints all over the place, and breaks a closed window, indicating that he€™s not really good at this whole B&E thing. As he wanders he finds some 8 mm films of Grace and starts watching them, leaving me wondering who the heck uses 8 mm film these days. I mean, even by the time I was a teenager back in the 1980s people were using video cameras. Can you even get 8 mm film developed still? But I digress. As Rich is moping about the Blood family house, Alo shows up. The two have a bit of a conversation with Rich wearing Grace€™s father€™s clothes. Is it just me or is Rich coming off as a really major stalker-type through this story? I mean he breaks into her hospital room, breaks into her house, starts wearing her father€™s clothes€these are not the actions of a healthy individual, though they might go some distance to explaining the reveal at the end. Alo wants to hold a big concert/party at the house, which Rich is initially cold to. Then he gets a call from Grace saying she€™s being moved again. He shouts into the phone for her to try and meet him in Paris, and then gets on board with the party idea so as to raise funds for them to make the trip to find her. Things get a little weirder when, during the party, he sees her in the crowd and starts wandering her house trying to find her€ Up to a point this was a really good, if really odd, episode. Like I said, Rich really, really comes off like a stalker here, which was at least interesting to see. Alo does a good job acting like a good friend, though he€™s continuing to secretly shag Mini (Freya Mavor), and does so at Grace€™s house, which sets off Rich just a tad. But while I liked the episode up to a point, once it hit that point, I was very puzzled. There€™s very little about the revelation that makes any actual sense and all it actually accomplishes is to make Rich look really unbalanced. It will be interesting to see what the fallout from this ends up being. That is it will be interesting if it€™s really addressed. Given that next week we€™re introducing a new character, I sense that it might not actually be addressed as thoroughly as it should be, but I guess we€™ll see.