Asexual Representation: Heartbreak High Season 3

Transcript

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney, I’m here with my spouse Royce. Together we are The Ace Couple and we are back for our third round of discussing the asexual representation in Heartbreak High.

Royce: And thankfully also the last one. The reboot is over.

Courtney: We’re finally done. We, we never have to watch this show again.

Royce: I feel like I didn’t hate season 1, but this is definitely the genre of show that we’ve reviewed a lot of that I’ve mentioned is not really my favorite thing to watch. But we got into episode 1 of season 3 and I went, oh, I don’t like this show.

Courtney: I’m surprised it took you this long to realize that.

Royce: It was more visceral this time around. I actually didn’t catch most of the season. I think I saw— I definitely watched all of episode 1. I think I saw bits and pieces maybe in the middle, and I saw, I believe, the last episode in its entirety.

Courtney: So let me say this: do I hate this show? Yes. Were there a couple elements of season 3 that I actually found a little more palatable than the first 2 seasons? Shockingly, yes. Did that make season 3 better for me as an experience to watch as a viewer? No, no, it, it did not. I actually had to go back and reread our transcript when we talked about season 2 of this show because season 2 was the one where Darren and Ca$h, our asexual character, were navigating some important relationship things as a mixed orientation ace-allo relationship.

Royce: Was the ace reveal not explicitly stated as ace but talked about heavily enough to be explicit at the end of season 1, and it— season 1 left unresolved?

Courtney: Yes, so from my recollection, season 1 never said the word asexual, but it was extremely obvious what the intention was with that character. I had mild frustrations that they didn’t say the word because of the phenomenon that happens with audiences and fandoms, especially in these teenage sex shows where, like, you are actively encouraged to ship everybody. People will always try to discredit any asexual representation unless it’s abundantly obvious. So my, my main thing for season 1 was like, say the word. In season 2, they said ace, I believe, one time. And the interesting thing is season 3, they said the word asexual, I think, only once.

Courtney: But the actual asexual character and this ace-allo relationship were hardly in the season at all. So, my problem with that as a trend is, yes, you finally got there. You went from not saying the word to saying ace to saying asexual. ‘asexual,’ so you, like, kind of developed and made the language more obvious, but you showed the actual character and what this means to him and what this means to their relationship less. And that’s not the point.

Courtney: But— mm— what I was getting at with going back to rereading our season 2 transcript, I know I had—some frustrations about the way their relationship and how they’re navigating intimacy were handled. I believe I said it was almost very good, but the one sort of breakthrough moment of them trying to discuss and figure out how to make intimacy work when they have varying levels of comfortability with sexual acts was like, when they were high on mushrooms— and this is a thing this show has done, they have really, really— like, they will tell you in words that consent is important, but then they’ll show you so many scenes where consent is ambiguous or outright missing or coerced in some way. And those moments are rarely treated in hindsight with the gravity that it deserves. Like, was it season 1 where that really uncomfortable threesome scene happened?

Royce: Yeah, that was season 1.

Courtney: So like, that was a big critique I had about that. It really didn’t get treated with the gravity it should have. And then with Ca$h and Darren having this moment that could have been really unique and special for asexual representation on TV was now under this cloud of, well, they were literally on drugs. They were on hallucinogenic substances. Is this really what they both wanted? Is this something they really both liked? And I hated that. They did not have to make that as messy as it did. But if they were going to make that as messy, messy, I think they at least after the fact have to clarify some things. They have to have totally sober conversations to get to a point of understanding that we know is true to themselves.

Courtney: And so the one thing I said in the last episode, because I wanted to measure my season 2— I wanted to measure season 3 by what my season 2 hopes were to make right what was a little muddy and could have been better. And what I said was, they need really good, robust, non-gray area conversations and scenes to actually figure out how this ace-allo relationship works and looks like for them in a theoretical third season if I am to give that a pass. Did we get that? No. No, we did not. Season 3 was very weird for a lot of reasons. I think these shows are just a baseline level of weird. But it starts with a time jump. They are like a year out from where the events of season 2 left off. And that is to some very weird effects because that means for Darren and Ca$h, everything that they have done to potentially discuss or experiment or navigate together happened off-screen within the last year isn’t really discussed. It just happened. They’re just, they’re just good now. This is just how they are.

Royce: Oh yeah, how far out were they from graduation when the season started? Because there were also a small new cast of characters that everyone just already knew. So a little bit into the first episode, I was thinking Did I forget people in this show? Am I supposed— did they switch actors?

Courtney: Me too. Me too. That’s what was so confusing, because especially it’s been, what, at least a couple of years since we even saw the last season.

Royce: Well, our last episode was almost 2 years ago.

Courtney: Okay, so it, it at least 2 years. My memory for these shows in the long term is already a little worse than average because I don’t personally connect with them in a positive way, so I don’t get, like, the excitement of thinking about it and remembering it, or, you know, connecting to any characters that I do in shows that I really, really enjoy. But also, they all come out all at once, we binge them as quickly as possible to just try to get it over with, and then I basically don’t think about it for— several years until the next season comes out. So admittedly, my memory, not as good as it could be on not only this show, but I would say any of the teenage sex shows.

Courtney: So yeah, it was strange when all of a sudden, oh, okay, Amerie has a boyfriend. They’ve been together about a year. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this guy. Have I ever seen this guy? No, I haven’t. He’s just here now. He’s been here a whole year. Their relationship is already well established. They already have, uh, you know, intimacy in chemistry. Look, see, this is what a year-long relationship looks like. Here you go. But also, because they are now a year out, they are close to graduating, they have all developed, like, these totally out-of-the-blue interests and life goals that we didn’t get to see them develop. We’re just told that they have them now, even though it was totally lacking from previous seasons.

Courtney: So we just have to take the writer’s word for it that Darren is all about acting now. They want to go to school for acting, they’re in a drama club, they’re putting on these plays, they’re getting ready for a big showcase. We just have to accept that, yeah, Quinni really wants to get into, um, veterinary school specializing in, um, horses, or maybe it was horse breeding. Amerie’s got this new boyfriend Harper, an aunt who had a weird thing— that’s— that is done and over and that’s not a real thing. Malakai has been gone for like a year, but surprise, he’s back now. And this is a big jarring thing because he’s been gone for so long and Amerie’s been in this whole relationship. He, he, he’s only been gone like half of an episode in our time as the viewers. So it was very weird and jarring to come back to. And yes, there were a ton of new characters who— none of them —had to be here. This is already such a big cast that I think in previous seasons has already struggled to do justice to all of their open storylines and give them all the time and consideration that they deserve. So let’s add for a third and final season brand new characters that also need to kind of have their own arcs. Like Taz is a new character who shows up and we hate her. And we’re gonna talk about her too. Now, to the credit of Ca$h, because I know there are many people in the ace community who adore this character— I was struggling to see it for a while because I will remind you, he was an accessory to kidnapping Harper in the first season. And yeah, he did help her get out and felt guilty about it, and he eventually got out of that gang and was in a bad position. I didn’t at the time super love everybody treating him as like, “Oh, our, our special precious little baby boy Ca$h,” who has like no doubt done really, really terrible things. However, in this third season, he is undeniably the best character in the main cast. He’s the best character. He’s the only remotely likable character to me in the third season. It’s Ca$h and his nan. They are the only two— I would watch and potentially even enjoy a spin-off series where Ca$h and Darren’s relationship doesn’t end up working out and Ca$h goes back home to live with his nan and the whole series is just nan and Ca$h’s shenanigans. I genuinely think that might be a better show. But part of what makes Ca$h so likable in this season is that he has almost nothing to do with anybody in the main cast. He is so heavily removed from most of the day-to-day things going on. And everybody is doing terrible things, very unlikable things, sometimes illegal things, and Ca$h is like— the reformed criminal who’s like, you’re going down a bad path, you don’t want to make the same mistakes that I did, I want no part of this. And honestly, yeah, as, as an individual character, I love him now. I, I do. I really, really do. I am no longer a Ca$h hater. That does not mean that I love Ca$h and Darren’s relationship in this season because I saw so much potential in the conversations they opened up in season 2 that I wanted to see follow through in this season, and we just didn’t. We didn’t even have Ca$h and Darren talking with each other about their relationship. The only way we now know what their relationship looks like right now is that Darren is kind of frustrated and moody. They’re kind of frustrated and moody most of this season. Anna is talking to Spider, who is now super cool and a good guy, and forget entirely that he was like the big villain.

Royce: Yeah, a main antagonist of season 1.

Courtney: Yeah, he’s just fully integrated into the group now. And Spider is having all these weird insecurities with his girlfriend Missy. He has somehow gotten it in his head that maybe she likes women, and he doesn’t fully vocalize the concern, so I don’t know if his concern is that she’s bisexual but he can’t compete with women, or if he thinks she’s a lesbian and isn’t actually into him. I don’t know the specifics of this concern, but he gets way in his head about what if Missy likes girls. So he’s talking with Darren at a party, and Darren just says, “Well, Ca$h is asexual.” That, I think, is the only time they say the full word asexual in this entire series. And I don’t, I don’t even think Darren says it first. I think it opens with Spider saying like, “So you two are like fully open now?” And Darren’s like, “Well yeah, Ca$h is asexual, but I’m not, blah blah blah.” Very short conversation. It’s not detailed and nuanced. It’s very flippant, uh, which Darren often is. And with Spider expressing his concerns about Missy, Darren just says, “Well, why don’t you open your relationship?” Oh my god, I hate it so much. I hated it before it started causing issues because it was so obviously going to cause issues. They’re having relationship problems and opening up your relationship is not a solution. To these kinds of relationship issues.

Courtney: And we don’t get to hear or see about how Darren or Ca$h navigated this open relationship. Darren doesn’t even talk about what their actual rules are for this, what type of open relationship. Just, yeah, we’re open. Ca$h is asexual. You should open your relationship too. And like, up till this point, there are a couple of times when Darren and Ca$h are in the same room together, but it’s not very often. We see a lot more of Darren just out doing their own thing. But what really sucks about that is that the few moments when they are in the same room together are generally very cute. They do have this really comfortable chemistry at some moments that I really enjoy seeing on a— on screen. I really do. And I would have liked to see the actual work that they put into it to get to this point.

Courtney: And I noticed as well, because previous season there was a big question about where are Ca$h’s limits? Are they always the same, or are there times when he’s more repulsed than other times? We don’t really know because of the ambiguity of they were on mushrooms that one time. But we have at many times in the previous seasons seen them make out. They did not do that even once this season. And I actually thought it was very, very cool. ’Cause what we did see was this new thing that they’re doing where one will, like, kiss their own fingertip and then push it against their partner’s lips. And we see them both do this, we see it happen multiple times. It becomes immediately apparent to me that this is like a cute couple thing they do. And I kind of like it. I kind of like it.

Courtney: Unfortunately, when I went to go read commentary on this season, lots of viewers were upset about this. I was reading comments like, “Where’s the passion? Why aren’t they making out anymore? They used to make out. I don’t know if those viewers making that commentary would have been assuaged if we actually saw their relationship progress and maybe over time we got to learn that, hey, Ca$h doesn’t actually really like making out. That was just something that he was doing because it’s expected in a relationship because he thought it’s something Darren wanted. These are patterns we saw him fall into in last season. So it would have made sense if truly coming to an understanding in their relationship and what Ca$h was and was not comfortable with— if they actually started scaling back on some of the physical things they used to do, that would not be an uncommon trajectory in ace-allo relationships. And that could have been extremely cool to see navigated with proper consideration on screen. Would’ve loved that. But no, instead what we have is— internet commenters frustrated that the asexual character is no longer making out with his partner. So that’s a shame. Because it really feels like season 3 just sidelined their relationship.

Courtney: It seemed to me like the writers decided— that the story of navigating an ace-allo relationship has already been told. But it really wasn’t. They didn’t do it well enough or let it unfold long enough. Uh, they didn’t give it time to cook and instead they just shoehorned in a conversation with someone else about like, “Yeah, we’re open now.” And that didn’t even seem— for the context of the plot in this season— that, that was for the sake of Darren and Ca$h’s story and their relationship. It seemed like the only reason why that conversation happened and why this situation was here was because they wanted another messy plotline for Spider and Missy. Because they wanted Spider to then suggest to Missy, oh, you can have a hall pass only for him to get really insecure and in his head because he doesn’t actually want this. And there is jealousy there, and there’s anxiety, and it just causes more problems because of course it does.

Courtney: And I believe in our last season recap, I actually talked about the merits of when you’re portraying in a show something that is outside of a current social norm. I did talk about the merits of depicting something done the wrong way first, and then showing it depicted the right way. There are a lot of benefits to doing that. I reference, uh, the Golden Girls episode all the time of, uh, Blanche’s brother coming out as gay. She reacted terribly to it, and we got to see all of the fallout from her saying the wrong things, the emotional problems, uh, that came of that. And then by the end of the episode, we got to see her have more understanding and sort of try that conversation again and try to do things better. It doesn’t always have to be the same person, makes a mistake and then corrects it, but that’s what you— parallels are for in storytelling. If they’re going to have this disaster —of an open relationship situation that is done in completely the wrong way, there are no boundaries discussed, nobody actually wants this, they’re just trying it because they think it’ll fix their relationship— then you’ve got to also show a positive example of an open relationship. You’ve got to show what it looks like when it’s done right.

Courtney: And they didn’t do that, ’cause we don’t actually see the nature of Darren and Ca$h having an open relationship. We are just told, in ham-fisted dialogue, that they did that at some point, in some way. And later on, when Darren realizes that Spider did this all wrong, and somehow doesn’t take any responsibility for going like, “Oh wait, maybe I’m the one who told you to do this but didn’t actually take a step back step back to see if this is what would be good for you, or walk you through how to do this, or talk about— like, they were just so oblivious. They got mad and frustrated. They’re like, wait, Spider, you didn’t set up ground rules? You didn’t talk about boundaries? And Spider’s like, what, was I supposed to? And Darren’s like, yes, yes, you’re supposed to do that. Ca$h and I did that.

Courtney: Like, all right, did you? Because you all communicate so poorly, maybe in your mind you think you did. And maybe Ca$h is on a totally different page, but gosh, we sure haven’t seen any of it. You’re— it’s so frustrating because it does kind of feel like they decided, all right, Ca$h and Darren’s story is done, but they are endgame, they’re going to stay together, so we’re just gonna show them as still being together, not having any totally relationship-ruining conflicts, but we’re also not going to show them growing together or maturing. We see Darren as an individual person grow a little bit this season, but we really don’t see that from Ca$h or their relationship as a couple. So that does mean that they took the one ace-allo relationship in this show, gave us some ham-fisted dialogue for the sole purpose of making a relationship conflict. With another unrelated allo couple. Don’t love it. Don’t love it. Nan is still the best.

Courtney: I mentioned Darren has this whole drama thing going on, but they, like, play a lot of these dramatic scenes up for comedy, and do this very sort of, you know, bitchy queer caricature that we do see a lot in —entertainment and pop culture. But Darren has proven this season that they use it somewhat as a crutch, not only when they’re acting but also in real life. And when this, like, acting coach or professor, talent scout, someone comes to watch their showcase, she is extremely unimpressed at Darren’s performance, despite the fact that other classmates in the audience are laughing. And when Darren asks for feedback, she very bluntly tells them, you know, you’re not letting people see the real you. There was no vulnerability in your performance. You’ve got this sort of mask on that you’re hiding behind. And Darren takes this so poorly that they are like, I’m quitting acting forever.

Courtney: Which is a storyline that I hate, except for it gave us probably the best line from Nan in this entire series. Darren is so down. Ca$h has been trying to help, doesn’t know what to do. Ca$h outright just brings Nan over to their house to basically gather Darren up and put them in their place. It was so good. They walk in and Darren is looking at, like, real estate sites. And Darren’s like, “It’s okay, I’m just gonna quit acting. In fact, I’m thinking of a career in real estate!” And Nan is sick of their bullshit and says, “No them-in-law of mine is going to be a realtor!” Mwah! Oh, it’s so good! Oh, I love Nan so much! Please— For the love of gnomes, give me a Ca$h and Nan spin-off. I would watch the fuck out of that. Them in law is the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life coming from a take-no-shit old lady. I love it. Um, it’s so good. I’m so glad we’ve been graced with this line. Uh, I’m gonna start telling my mom to call you that. No them-in-law of mine is gonna be a realtor. I can’t, it’s too good.

Courtney: But I couldn’t even enjoy that moment for too long in the moment because then Ca$h walks away and comes back crying with his dead duck Darude in his arms and he’s like, oh no, Darude died and now I’m sad because the duck died and now they have to have a duck funeral. Which is very sad. They give the duck, like, the pop culture version of a Viking funeral. Like, they take the duck to a lake and set it on fire afloat.

Royce: A little boat.

Courtney: A little tiny boat. Okay, but then some, like, park ranger or something comes up and sees them lighting this fire, and Nan’s like, run!

Royce: Park rangers don’t normally like people making fires in the park. It’s kind of their whole deal.

Courtney: Do you want to bet what song they played as they have a running away secret sequence at Darude’s funeral?

Royce: At Darude’s funeral? At Darude’s funeral? Sandstorm?

Courtney: It was Sandstorm.

Royce: Is there going to be an age gap in understanding that joke?

Courtney: I don’t know, because this is–

Royce: This show is made for younger people, right?

Courtney: I mean, if they’re in high school now, they’re supposed to be Gen Z, allegedly, even though they’re all in their 30s.

Royce: I feel like I was in high school when that song came out. 2000. Yep. Well, that would have been before high school for me, but I think that’s when I first heard it.

Courtney: And honestly, like, Nan telling Darren off and then telling everyone to run when they get caught by the park ranger at this Viking funeral for duck, and then they’re all running away with Darude Sandstorm playing. The only two redeeming qualities of this entire season, I think.

Royce: Funny, because the music video for that was a chase scene.

Courtney: And now we know why. So for all the fun and joy and heartbreak, uh, those two scenes brought us Darren immediately has to go and be bitchy and undercut all of it because they gave this like beautiful eulogy before they got caught, and Nan like compliments them on the beautiful eulogy, and they like make a joke. They’re like, oh, it’s no big deal, I just stole it from this movie. And then Ca$h is like, why do you always do that? Like, why, why can’t you just have a heartfelt moment? Why are you always trying to undercut everything?

Courtney: So that, we can tell, is trying to be a parallel with Darren’s whole acting thing, like they’re hiding behind a facade. If only we got like, better parallels and better resolutions to that, but Darren is giving like a monologue about like— I think they’re acting as like, Humpty Dumpty’s dad? Cause they’re like, “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put my son together again.” And— they were originally going to, like, play this funny. I think there was, like, a big egg costume, and it was gonna be jokey and campy and witty and bitchy and very Darren-esque, but at the last minute, when they’re backstage ready to go on, Darren’s like, “No. I have to let people see the real me. I’ve learned now.”

Courtney: So then they put Darren on stage with Spider, who I think is Humpty Dumpty who is now dead and in the background and just giving like a line every now and then to mix it up. Darren’s just playing this like a really sad eulogy monologue, deeply emotional but objectively ridiculous bit. And that is like our moment of understanding. That is supposed to be Darren’s character growth. Like, they get it now. They should do the scene about being Humpty Dumpty’s parent sad instead of funny.

Courtney: It’s— what I would have liked to see, because Darren’s sexuality was a very big plot point in the previous two seasons, and we have seen Darren have at times a very unhealthy relationship with it. Having, you know, unequal relationships with much older people. Uh, going to try to have sex with someone the one time they and Ca$h had a fight. To use that as like a coping mechanism, as a way to try to get, you know, positive attention from people. We don’t know if Darren has worked on those because we don’t really see Darren express the sexual side of their self this season in the same way they have in the previous two. We just kind of hear, oh, by the way, our relationship is open now.

Courtney: So what I would have liked to see is if they’re paralleling that emotional intimacy and letting people see the real you with Darren grappling with and coming to terms with their sexuality in a more healthy way. Maybe simultaneously. They can see how they have been at times using sex and sexuality as a coping mechanism, as a way to get attention. Maybe because they’ve been using it in these ways, they’ve put a stronger emphasis on it in their own life than is actually natural or wanted or warranted. And— maybe we could have seen some, like, exploration of that in parallel. And that could have been really, really cool, ’cause that is also also not uncommon in ace-allo relationships that communicate well and learn and grow together, because very often it’s not as black and white as one wants sex and one doesn’t want sex.

Courtney: Because we have seen real-world examples time and time again of an ace-allo relationship where the allo thinks— because they haven’t had to think as deeply about sex and sexuality as ace people do. They think, well, I’m a sexual person, I want sex. And if they’re in a relationship with an ace person who is, you know, ace-positive or sex-positive, sex-neutral, someone who is interested in exploring sex acts for the sake of their partner, sometimes that’s still not enough for the allo partner because sometimes it’s not just about the act of sex itself. Sometimes it’s about wanting to feel desired is one, which is something that I see in Darren, and I have seen in Darren in the past in seasons 1 and 2. Darren just wanted to feel desired by someone, and if that could have been explored, that could be really cool.

Courtney: Maybe they open their relationship, and so now, you know, Ca$h is comfortable with it, Darren is able to sleep with other people under whatever agreements they have come to, maybe that still doesn’t quite feel right, or that doesn’t quite feel like enough. And maybe Darren also has to go on a journey about what does sex actually mean to me, what does it mean to our relationship? Because we never get that deep of an exploration and understanding from, honestly, either the ace or aro characters in media. And I’m kind of sick of these shows that have these just like fully realized sexually teenagers who are so confident and so open and so “progressive”— and I’m putting progressive in quotes because we’re gonna come back to the actual ideologies of this show— that they’re having threesomes, they’re having open relationships, they’re, you know, exploring queerness, they’re having, like, I think it’s just as valuable to depict allosexual characters really going on a personal journey for what sex and sexuality actually means to them in ways that are complex and nuanced as it is to see from ace characters. But we, we often don’t even get that level of depth from ace characters in media either.

Courtney: But I’m just saying, that could have been a great way to not only show Darren’s personal development, but their development as a couple, seeing them actually navigate and negotiate these things. And— there are just so many missed opportunities all the time! So, bearing in mind the fact that while the two of them are in the same room, I like them. I really do. I like Ca$h every time he’s on screen this season. They even show him a couple of times, like, getting ready for a party and he’s just like— like, getting visibly more, like, joyful and artistic and queer in his expression, and I love that. We only see little tiny cues of that, that also wasn’t, like, a thing we got to see develop because of this weird year-long jump, but it, it’s nice to see. Ca$h sort of, like, doesn’t have any of his own personal journey anymore. Like, he’s a reformed criminal, he’s the good guy now, he’s everybody’s conscience telling them they did a bad thing, He’s in a relationship with Darren, so I guess he’s just gonna do whatever Darren is doing. Which is unfortunate. Because I don’t inherently hate them as a couple. I would have liked to see it unfold better.

Courtney: But Darren, like, dropped out of acting, wasn’t going to apply to this acting school, and now it’s like, too late when they decide to come back and— and go back to acting. And maybe I should pursue acting. Maybe I will. So, well, since it’s too late to go, like, audition for this acting school that was the first plan, well, oh, Darren has, uh, dual citizenship. They can just go to the US. Why don’t they move to New York and just try to start an acting career right away? That can be a thing that happens. And for a moment, uh, Ca$h doesn’t want to go, because Ca$h just lost Darude, and Nan’s getting older. He had, like, a scare at one point where he thought, like, she was just napping, but coming off of Darude dying, he was terrified that Nan died too. And so he tells Darren for a bit, “I can’t go to New York with you, not while Nan’s still around. I want to be here for her and have time with her.” And they don’t break up. They decide, well, we can still just do a long-distance thing.

Courtney: But then Nan ultimately ends up telling Ca$h off and being like, “I will never forgive you if you just stay here for me. You— you move to America.” with my them-in-law and go do that. And I guess we kind of see an inkling of Ca$h’s starting to do tattoos. He, he like tattoos Malakai at one point. And I think Darren’s pitch is like, you can tattoo people in New York and I can try to start an acting career.

Royce: Good luck on both of those fronts.

Courtney: Yeah, what a weird time to depict moving to the US as aspirational. Not only, like, how are you going to afford to live in New York, but also, like, is this really the time you want to be moving to the US right now? But even, like, the tattooing, like, we don’t really get to see, like, this is Ca$h’s passion. He loves doing it. He’s, like, he’s just kind of shown doing it once and is told you can do this in New York also, so it’s like I’m like, is this just a thing he fell into because he thinks it’s a reasonable career path for this reformed criminal, or does he genuinely love it? I don’t really know, ’cause we just don’t see enough of him. So they do ultimately stay together, and it sounds like Ca$h is going to follow Darren to New York. And— I’m still a little bummed for him. I get why Nan said that and is like, “Don’t stay just for me, I want you to go and live your life.” If Ca$h learns someday within the next year or two that Nan died, like, I kind of feel like he’s going to regret every day that he didn’t have with her, you know. I—

Royce: And it just seems like an odd move right out of high school to go to the most expensive city in another country.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: I mean, they’re already going to be disadvantaged by the currency conversion rate.

Courtney: It’s, it’s a, it’s a choice. But that’s actually one thing I wanted to also talk about, because we did get into this a little bit last season where this show and others like it at times, but this is one we’re talking about now. It tries to paint itself as being so progressive because look at how many queer characters we have and look at how sex positive it is. Look at how much sex they’re all having. This is really progressive, right? This is what it looks like to be a progressive show, right? It’s not. It’s actually, like, center-right at best. At best. Sometimes it at least tries to pretend like it’s a little more moderate, like it does a both sides bad kind of a thing. But after we had our last conversation about the actual underlying ideologies of these shows, even when they tell you in dialogue that something is bad or problematic, they double down on that thing in actions. They might talk the talk sometimes, but they do the exact opposite when it’s time to walk the walk.

Courtney: And I wish people in, in their media analysis would be, like, a little more aware of those things. Because right now, in this current political climate, one of the huge pushes we’ve seen from the conservative agenda is trying to undermine education, trying to get fewer people to pursue higher education, trying to undermine the importance and legitimacy of, of going to college, going to university, getting degrees. I don’t know if we saw a single character who was planning to pursue higher education actually do that. They all— every single one of them— seemed to either directly make another decision or it hinted at the fact that they might make another decision. And I know some people will probably look at that as like, yeah, good for you, you’re carving your own path. But in the current political landscape and the way they treated some other issues this season, it’s really, really hard to ignore how many characters were planning to go to school and just didn’t.

Courtney: First of all, we have, uh, Harper and Amerie, who— I think of all the characters, Harper made the most sense to not pursue higher education because she is working several jobs. She has been independent for so long. She has, you know, dealt with poverty and family issues and trauma all throughout high school. There are people who are still systemically kept out of higher education, especially people like Harper. She doesn’t have money to go to school. She doesn’t have, like, the grades to get a scholarship. When Amerie was making this big plan, like, oh, we’re going to go to university together, and Amerie was going to go for psychology, and she’s like, Harper, you can go for art. Harper was a little wishy-washy about this whole time, and, and that makes sense to me. But Amerie was so gung-ho about, I’m going to go to school for psychology.

Courtney: Now, a lot of people change their minds, of course, that’s to be expected. But Harper, who at this point has struggled in life but made the decision she’s had to. She takes the job she needs to, she makes the money she needs to, she survives and gets by. And that’s a big part of her character. She decides like, ‘No, fuck it, I’m just gonna get in my car and drive.’ Which, as someone who has been in survival mode, work multiple jobs mode, do what you need to do mode, really surprises me from her. Maybe she finally met her breaking point. I don’t know.

Courtney: But then Amerie just decides to go with her. She’s like, ‘Yeah, fuck it, I will come with you too. Let’s just get in a car and drive.’ Uh, fuck university, actually. And that’s how their story ends, they just drive off into the distance with no plan for anything. But then we also have Darren, didn’t go to acting school like they wanted to, instead let’s move right to New York and try to start our career right away. We have Ca$h, who, yeah, I’m just gonna follow my partner and just do tattoos. I’m just gonna do that. We have— Missy, I believe— well, now I don’t know. Maybe it was a, maybe it was a school team, but she’s so shown getting like a soccer jersey, so I was kind of under the impression, or football jersey, so like she’s becoming an athlete. But I don’t know if it’s like a college athlete, college sports kind of a thing, or if she went right to pro. I don’t know how that works.

Royce: I might have missed something or might be misremembering, but I thought there was a scholarship that was a part of that.

Courtney: That could be. So maybe I think she’s the only one going to school because then it shows Spider, uh, like coaching basketball for kids. Sasha is not seen going to school, uh, because she gets arrested and needs to do community service. I don’t know what she’s doing alongside the community service. We need to talk about how this season treated Sasha. She has already been established to be like the annoying social justice warrior character, and I already complained about this trope. It’s a trope that needs to die.

Royce: If you needed more evidence about the show’s writers probably leaning right, uh, Sasha’s your evidence because this—

Courtney: Sasha is the villain.

Royce: This stereotype doesn’t— I don’t want to say that it flat out doesn’t exist, but it’s— it is a— an exaggeration of a view of people. And it’s—

Courtney: So like Spider and Ant are fully integrated into the friend group now. Ca$h has been reformed from his ways. I believe Missy was— maybe I’m getting this wrong because it was so long ago, but wasn’t Missy kind of a bully a long time ago? I mean, honestly, Amerie is awful. So many of these characters are awful. But Sasha’s the one they hate. They hate her so much, they have a group chat with everyone in it except for her. And the, like, picture of this group chat is like Sasha’s face with like the no symbol slashed over top of it. And it’s like the no Sasha group chat. And everyone’s just being so awful to her immediately.

Courtney: But listen, I feel bad for a lot of what happened to Quinni this season, but I’m also— profoundly disappointed in Quinni this season. Because I talked about how the show will tell you something but show you another. One of those being— Quinni was calling out ableist language in previous season. When Amerie would say idiot, she’d say, “Idiot is ableist language.” Then they would just ignore and brush over that and continue to use the ableist language. So they really just wanted someone to harp on the fact that this word is bad, they didn’t actually want to show that it’s bad. And that’s what a lot of shows like this do. This is a thing Quinni has done. We’ve talked about Quinni doing this.

Courtney: Amerie, I think, says the word “lame.” And Sasha says, “Lame is ableist language.” Everyone’s present. Quinni is there. And everyone loses their shit on Sasha and says, “this is why nobody likes you.” This is why we don’t want to hang out with you anymore. You’re insufferable. Quinni just stands there with this group who are attacking Sasha for calling out the fact that lame is in fact a word that has ableist origins. And she just lets it slide. They hate Sasha for basically the entire season until very close to the end. Well, do you care to just quickly summarize what the first episode actually was and why you were so frustrated by it? Because this is the central conflict that gets set up for the whole season.

Royce: Do you mean specifically with Sasha or the episode in its entirety? I feel like I have—

Courtney: The whole carnival thing.

Royce: I feel like I have forgotten enough that I can’t actually do that.

Courtney: They basically end up breaking into a carnival because they’re in a feud with another school. Like, another school stole their mascot head, so they steal their mascot, like, statue bust.

Royce: And they’re going to go put it on a, a ride.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. And so they do that, and like, the carnival owner catches them and tries to run, but then the rides just like all magically turn on.

Royce: And— is it just that individual ride that turns on? I guess it doesn’t really matter. The ride turns on.

Courtney: It’s only a ride that like started going, but other lights within the carnival all turned on. But yeah, like Malakai falls and hurts his shoulder, and the carnival owner falls and may have died, but no one stays around long enough to find out. They all just fuck right out of there.

Royce: I do remember complaining about the whole setup to getting on the carnival ride and how did it turn on, and we eventually figure that out, but– There are a lot of bad decisions made.

Courtney: Oh, of course. Central to this show is everyone is terrible and makes awful choices, uh, except for Ca$h, who this whole time was like, don’t do it, don’t do it. But they did. And I wanted to know in the first place why they’re so— why they have so much school pride all of a sudden, even. Like, all right, so some assholes stole their mascot head, but now they’re like, we need to get even. “how dare they steal our mascot head.” It’s like, I, I don’t know, I don’t know. There’s something about this extreme school loyalty that is itself fairly conservative and, and not present to the same degree in the first two seasons. Yeah, if anything, they were actively undermining their school by trying to call it like the sex school, or is— or was that sex education? I don’t even know. Which, which of these two shows was like, yeah, we’re the sex school? Am I— oh no, this is bad. Maybe they both did it to varying degrees.

Courtney: But, um, yeah, so they just really want to get even with this other school and they break several laws to do it and then leave a guy to potentially die, uh, at the risk of getting caught sneaking into a carnival. At night after it closed that Harper works at. So the big mystery all season is like, who turned on the rides? Was it one of us? Was it one of the boys from the school whose mascot we stole? Was it the carnival owner’s son? Nope. Later turns out it was Sasha the whole time. She found out everybody hated her so much and she felt so bad that she followed them to the carnival and sabotaged them. And this, like, this carny ends up, like, getting put in a coma. He eventually wakes up from the coma, but he’s seriously injured.

Royce: And yeah, he chased them off the ride and got hit in the head while it was operating.

Courtney: Yeah. So they don’t know it’s Sasha until the very end, but they still hate Sasha. They ostracize her severely. And she even tries to, like, make other friends or get involved in other groups. There’s this, like, vegan group that she finds that she’s like, “Yes! I want to join you! I’m all about animal justice!” And this other person handing out flyers, like, smells her and was like, “Wait, is that this particular perfume?” Which, I know there are some perfume snobs out there, but there are no scents that I know well enough that I would know a brand name for a perfume that you’re wearing. And Sasha’s like, ‘Yeah.’ And they’re like, ‘You know they test on animals, right?’ And Sasha’s like, ‘Uh, it was just a free sample I got.’ And they’re like, ’You’re not good enough for our group. Maybe come back when you can actually ‘live your values.’

Courtney: It’s like, goodness gracious. So she is too woke for the main cast, but not woke enough to actually hang with the, like, activists. And so I kind of feel, like, really awful for her because everyone hates her, and she seems like she’s just trying her best until we find out that she almost killed a guy later. Before they all find out it was her, they actually all ended up getting expelled like the day before graduation or something ridiculous like that. And so Ca$h ends up being like the only one who gets to graduate. Which is kind of funny to me.

Courtney: But, um— so they all go to celebrate Ca$h’s graduation while all of them got expelled and don’t get to graduate. And the teacher who ran the previous SLT’s class, who I think very inappropriately seeks them out after this graduation that they didn’t get to graduate at. And she was like in the room in the background when they got expelled. And she comes and finds them and they’re all clearly very upset and in conflict with one another. It’s a very emotional time. And she’s like, like, let’s have one last SLT’s class right here in this bar where you’re trying to celebrate Ca$h’s graduation, which is so wildly inappropriate.

Courtney: And I can’t believe they all actually sat around to let her talk at them and didn’t just tell her to fuck off. It really felt more like, this is our last season, so we have to, like, replay all the best hits. Like, we saw Dusty as a character for all of 2 seconds in one episode. He just popped up and then left again. And now they’re like, well, SLT class was such a big part of, you know, the previous season, so let’s have another SLT class, even though they all got expelled except for one who graduated. And so this teacher’s like, let’s share our feelings. Here’s like a talking stick kind of a situation, and nobody wants to talk because everyone’s so upset, but Sasha shows up and is there for some reason.

Courtney: And she decides, “I’ll go.” And she basically says, “I know I act high and mighty all the time, but really I’m just an insufferable bitch and a hypocrite.” And— then everyone gives her a big ol’ group hug. And it’s like, all is forgiven now. ’Cause they’re like, “Yeah, you are a bitch. You really are insufferable. Glad you could finally admit it.” Oh, it’s so upsetting. Oh, it’s so upsetting. I hate it so much. And then they’re actually a little cool with her and they go on a trip together, but that’s when they find out, oh, she’s the one who started the ride the whole time. Oh no. So she gets arrested. She gets community service.

Courtney: And you know, this isn’t the only time this season they took insufferable character isn’t so bad after all after they just admit that they’re a hypocrite and terrible. —because the, uh, Puriteens from last season is for some reason in drama class with Spider and Darren. And she starts as insufferable as always, but then when the three of them are practicing late, she does make an admission. She’s like, “I do kinda want to have sex. I’m just afraid of getting hurt.” And they’re like, Thank you for telling me. Now we can hang out and maybe not hate you so much. And also, yes, you should have sex. Maybe you will get hurt, but you should definitely do it.

Courtney: Which I think brings us lastly to Quinni, another character who deserved better, was treated terribly, got a bad ending, also had higher education ruined for her, and was also just stripped back and we didn’t get to see— grow or change as a character as much as she deserved. So, in past seasons, we have praised certain elements of the autistic representation that she brings us. This season, they didn’t seem to show her autistic traits as much as they have in the past. And that, again, kind of reads like, well, we already told that story, so it’s done.

Courtney: What we do see is, as school captain and as someone who is applying for scholarships, she’s doing a lot with the senior class. Her big project is creating a sensory room in the school for herself and other students like her. And she’s very proud of this accomplishment. And we do see her a couple of times sitting in the sensory room, in like a big beanbag chair or a hanging swinging chair and wearing her headphones. But we don’t see her get as much like fatigue and burnout from— social interaction as we’ve seen before. We see a lot of hectic things going on this season, and they don’t seem to bother her as much as they used to.

Courtney: And so we get introduced to Taz, this new student, who decides, ‘Hey, this sensory room is a great place for students to have sex in.’ So Taz decides to start renting out the sensory room. And this is so wildly popular that Taz actually raises prices on it because supply and demand, baby. That’s capitalism. Look at how— I’m, I’m so booked. I can only pencil you in for this time on this day. Kids are constantly fucking in this sensory room that’s supposed to be for students who are neurodivergent and need a space like this as an accessibility accommodation.

Courtney: And— not only is this gross and terrible and awful and I hate it so much, but we actually have, like, study after study showing that teenage sexual activity is declining. Drastically. And this has been trending in this direction for years. And while most people who only have a surface-level glance at conservative politics would think, oh, conservatives probably love it that teenagers are having less sex, that’s very much not the case. We are seeing so many —like fear-inducing articles about the population decline and fertility rate lowering. And when you get into those things and when you get deep enough what they’re talking about, a big part of the problem is that there are fewer teen pregnancies, which should be a good thing. But we’ve seen that used as an argument in court.

Courtney: I don’t know about Australia, but here in the US, Yes, in courts, states have argued that, you know, abortion drugs such as mifepristone shouldn’t be available via mail because it will lead to a decline in teenage pregnancies. And we need those teenage pregnancies because we need the population to keep going up, because we need the population to grow— go up to get federal funding. I think when, when sexual activity and/or pregnancies, childbearing, fertility are either advocated for or against in terms of quantity, whether it’s you need to have more or you need to have less, that’s incredibly conservative. And people don’t tend to think about it that way. People tend to take a much shallower view of it where less sex is conservative, more sex is progressive. That’s not the case. That is not the case.

Royce: Less bodily autonomy is conservative.

Courtney: Yes. And it is odd to me that we have shows that are depicting a statistically outsized percentage of teenagers having sex as being progressive in an era where we have conservatives who are railing against the fact that kids these days aren’t having enough sex, we need more teenage pregnancies, and the kids in school who don’t want to have sex, well, they’re the weird ones and they’re wrong and they’re repressed and they should have sex. That doesn’t mean you can’t depict— sexually active teenagers on TV. It doesn’t mean that. It has never meant that. But— that’s the lens with which I view it. If you’re telling me that so many kids in this school are not only sexually active, but so horny they can’t wait until after school that they are paying money to rent out the sensory room, and you have people booked solid all day long throughout the school day to go into the sensory room and have sex. No! Why are you depicting that this many teenagers are having this much sex when statistically, fewer teenagers are having sex today than they were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. The numbers are going down.

Courtney: So this Taz girl ends up hooking up with Sasha in the— sensory room. On the day that Quinni is showing around a guy who is in charge of giving out this big scholarship. Internship for the, uh, program she wants to attend. And she’s trying to show him all the good things she’s done as school captain and all of her projects, and she’s so proud to show him the sensory room, so she opens the sensory room to just see these two teenage girls having sex in the sensory room. Oh, it was so upsetting. Obviously shocking, obviously— Quinni’s very upset because she’s worried about this scholarship being in jeopardy. She basically asks for another chance. She emails this guy, wants to invite him back to the school, try again.

Courtney: And Taz finds out in the meantime— first of all, now Taz is fuming at Quinni because now she got in trouble for having sex in the sensory room and renting it out for other kids to have sex in the sensory room. So clearly it’s all Quinni’s fault, she’s terrible. She finds out Quinni’s been writing this, like, fanfiction, like, really smutty lesbian fanfiction based off of the, like, book series that she really likes. And lots of people in school are reading this. Everyone’s making fun of the Puriteen girl, which is— they’re outright sexually harassing her? For a lot of the season until she admits that she does actually want to have sex, then she’s kind of cool and maybe will stop sexually harassing you. But like, everyone is going to her and being like, “I know you wrote this. I know you wrote this.” And start just talking about overtly sexual things with her.

Courtney: And when she tries to leave and remove herself from the situation— I know there was one scene where Ant just like follows her and keeps sexually harassing her as she’s trying to leave. And this is not painted as a bad or problematic thing. Because she’s repressed and not having sex and therefore she’s worse than all the kids who aren’t repressed and are having lots of sex. So again, maybe, maybe not the most progressive show in the world. But Taz finds out it was Quinny this whole time. These have all been published anonymously. She never intended, um, as far as we know, to let anyone know that she was the one who’s been writing this. Taz, like, breaks into her computer, finds an unpublished chapter, decides to go full Regina George, Mean Girls, with the burn book, prints off this chapter with Quinni’s name on it and, like, hundreds of copies of it, throws it all over the school hallways and the courtyard on the day this guy in charge of determining the scholarship recipients is coming back.

Courtney: And so he sees this littering the school, picks it up, reads it, sees Quinni’s name is on it, tells her absolutely not, no scholarship. So Quinni and Taz start a relationship, and they bond over the shared love of this, uh, book series that inspired this smutty fanfiction that Quinni’s been writing. And Taz is like: “I really love it and you should keep writing.” And Quinni is so upset she wants to stop writing, but Taz is like: “No, you need to keep writing.” So Quinni eventually does keep writing. Quinni even finds out that Taz did this to her. And is mad for like a little bit?

Courtney: But then Darren helps facilitate getting them together in the end. Which really upsets me because Darren’s whole thing was like, “I love Quinni and I will do anything to protect her. Darren knows all the shit Taz has done, but Darren’s like, but I’m gonna move to New York and I need to make sure that someone will be here to take care of Quinni when I’m gone. So this person who has proven to be so vindictive and spiteful and perfectly happy to ruin people’s lives, uh, twice now has done it directly to Quinni, has also, uh, sabotaged, sabotaged Sasha— she pulled the fire alarm during graduation. She is just a mess and being a problem on purpose. But they end up together. They end up together. Quinni doesn’t get her scholarship. Quinni knows Taz sabotaged her scholarship twice and defiled her sensory room repeatedly. But they end up together, and I guess the assumption leaving off is that Quinni’s gonna keep writing this series she’s been writing. I don’t know if that’s gonna end up being her main gig, if she’s eschewing higher education entirely to just write this. I don’t know, ’cause they don’t really tell us. They just show Quinni and Taz being together at the end.

Courtney: So yeah, all the missed opportunities are frustrating. A lot of the things the writers seemed to try to make us want to root for didn’t land. We luckily never need to review another season of the show because there isn’t gonna be one, but I, I will still advocate that we get a Ca$h and Nan spin-off. I, I actually genuinely do want that. Ca$h and Nan’s relationship is the best thing to come out of the show, period. Maybe fucking Nan moves to New York too. Maybe it’s the three of them. I’ll allow that as long as they make Ca$h and Darren actually communicate more. I will allow that because I do like seeing Nan tell off Darren, and I’d love more of that.

Royce: Well, given the size of a room the three of them would have to purchase together in New York City, they’d have to communicate. It’d be inevitable.

Courtney: It would be inevitable. So with that, if you, like us, are not the biggest fan in the world of teenage sex shows— oh wait, oh I should give them flowers for one little thing, one little tiny thing. The obnoxiously loud kissing scenes were minimized this season. The first, like, making out scene— I think it was Amerie and her new boyfriend who wasn’t even a fully developed character in himself— when they started making out, there were no mouth sounds. It was just— they were muted and there was music over top of it. So that, that made those scenes a little more, uh, watchable for me. So thank you for that, uh, whoever made that sound decision.

Courtney: But right, now on to our featured Marketplace vendor. If you, like us, don’t love the teenage sex show genre of television, then perhaps I can instead interest you in author Kenneth Feller. The book is called The Outsiders of Orkland. A novel about a doctor seeking medicine from death metal orcs and features Ace Rep that’ll spin your head. This is a New Zealand-based author, so it is a dark fantasy with an Australasian twist, which we are actually reading right now. And so far, we are enjoying it more than Heartbreak High.

Royce: Well, that’s a low bar. We are still relatively early in the book. Maybe we’re a quarter or a fifth of the way through it, but the way it’s written is refreshingly different. The style of fantasy, or, um, the world building, the magic, is unique enough from other sort of fantasy genres I’ve read about.

Courtney: And it just proves that ace rep does not need to be confined to television nor high school If you would like to join us in reading The Outsiders of Orkland, you can purchase at the links which we will put in the show notes on our website, as well as the description box if you’re listening on YouTube. You can get it in ebook or paperback. As always, thank you all so much for being here, and we will talk to you all next time.