A long long time ago in a TV land far away, there was this amazing show called Skins, and it was queer and edgy and raw and dirty and sexy and everything you could ever want from a television program but never imagined you’d ever actually get. Then tragedy struck: first, Skins US happened. Then, Skins Season Six. Both of those televised situations sucked so bad that we wondered if we’d ever see the Skins we knew and loved again.
Then last fall, it was announced that there would be a final Skins Series 7, entitled Skins Redux, and that this series would bring back some of our most favorite Skins characters: Hannah Murray as Cassie, Jack O’Connell as Cook and Kaya Scodelario as Effy. (This idea replaced the original idea to have a Skins movie.) Most importantly for the homos, Skins Redux promised the return of Lily Loveless as Naomi and Kat Prescott as Emily. We were promised that Redux “will go into new territory; more adult, more uncompromising” and informed that “each story centres on the characters now in their early twenties, the party’s over and they’re starting out as young adults, struggling to find a direction and a focus in unforgiving times.”
Now it’s all really finally happening — Skins Redux premieres July 1st — and we’ve got the pictures and videos to prove it.
First, the teaser for the series:
Effy’s teaser:
Cassie’s teaser:
Skins Redux will tell three stories in two episodes per story, each focusing on one character: Pure (Cassie), Rise (Cook) and Fire (Effy). It’ll kick off with Fire, which just-so-happens to be the story featuring Naomi & Emily. Here are the episode synopses:
“Skins Pure” (by Bryan Elsley) Cassie (Hannah Murray), now aged 23, is adrift, alone and invisible in London, trying to make sense of her life. Slowly she realises that someone is following her. Cassie turns towards the unknown. A strange and poignant friendship is carved out of mutual loneliness, but can it survive exposure to the real world?
“Skins Rise” (by Jamie Brittain) Cook (Jack O’Connell), now aged 21, has a job delivering drugs to Manchester revellers. When he is asked to help his employer’s girlfriend find a house, he finds that he is irresistibly attracted to her which sets off a chain of events leading him into a world of savage revenge and a confrontation with his own violent past.
“Skins Fire” (by Jess Brittain) Effy (Kaya Scodelario), now aged 21, has a dead end job as a receptionist for a leading London Hedge Fund. But as she stumbles across crucial financial information relating to a troubled deal and embarks on an affair with her wealthy boss, she finds out that she has bitten off more than she can chew. Her flatmate Naomi (Lily Loveless) tries to stop Effy from ruining her life, but Effy cannot be reached; until tragedy strikes, Emily (Kathryn Prescott) will also return.
Hannah Murray, who currently plays Gilly in Game of Thrones, talked to Digital Spy about her return to Skins last week, revealing that Cassie’s been “drifting around” America since we last saw her and is now working in a café in London, unsure about “what she wants to do with her life yet.” Murray added, “She’s also been with a boy in America. I will leave it up to the audience to decide who that could be.” Murray suggested that the show would keep it “ambiguous,” which means we may never know if it was Sid or not, which does break my heart.
loves the new mal blum album
Thinking of things we may never know, many people fear that a new Skins could rob us of the happy ending Naomi & Emily got at Series 4’s conclusion. Kaya Scodelario told Digital Spy that her episodes, which show Effy and Naomi as roommates (rather than Naomi and Emily as roommates, as they were when we last saw them), will focus on Effy and Naomi’s friendship, “how it changes and the kind of struggles that they go through together… [it’s] about a lot of different things including friendship, love and redemption but ultimately it’s them finding themselves in the world.”
what do you mean there’s nothing vegan at this luncheon
In a favorable and spoiler-laden review of Series 7’s first episode, Cultbox has the following to say about Naomi’s fate:
It is also great to see Lily Loveless return as Naomi, although it is such a shame that the once feisty, passionate character has been reduced to a lay-about stoner. Neverthless, the new scattered Naomi is quite funny in her own way, despite a bizarre choice of career. Later scenes reveal more to suggest that Naomi has simply lost her way, and a shocking twist indicates a much bigger role for Loveless in the second part.
and that girl over there, she broke my heart and then my water bong!
The “shocking twist” mentioned by Cultbox is most definitely the “tragedy strikes” mentioned in the aforementioned episode summary, which likely has something to do with this freshly-released still from Skins Fire, showing Effy in a hospital hallway:
ugh how long do i have to wait to get the results of my yeast infection culture
So, are Naomi and Emily still a thing? Well, according to some humans who happened to catch a G3 Magazine behind-the-scenes-of-a-photoshoot video today before the video mysteriously went private, Emily and Naomi are indeed still together at the start of Skins: Fire. The episode summary also suggests that Emily returns to London after “tragedy strikes.”
waiting for godot and/or a threesome
Lily Loveless and Kathryn Prescott recently did a photo shoot and interview for Fiasco Magazine, which produced some lovely photographs and provided a few scraps of news. From Kathryn Prescott’s interview:
Was there much to identify with your grown up character?
Well, my character is just guesting because she’s gone off to New York to do a photography internship, which I can relate to cos I do photography myself. When we last saw her she was in college but now she’s come into her own a bit.
Was it fun to film?
When I was filming – it was a different city, different crew and it was on location – so I was going, this feels very weird. It doesn’t feel like the same show, which is what they were going for. I quite like it cos Skins is about being in the present and being a young adult, and the good thing about these mini-films is that they show that there are consequences. Even when you’re 16 that has a knock on effect about how you live your life in your 20s. And some people can change the way they live and others stick to the same patterns.
Photographer: Edward T. Cooke (edwardcooke.co.uk) via fiasco plus
From Lily Loveless’s interview:
How was it revisiting the character of Naomi?
I’d completely forgotten who she was and what it was like to play her, and I said to the writer, do you think I should watch the old series back and he sai,d ‘don’t watch it just play it’. The character had changed and he didn’t want us to play it how we had back then because we’re a lot older. The first day was really hard, I didn’t know what I was doing!
Did it come flooding back?
Yeah, it was a weird sensation. I played her for 2 years, so once I got back into it it was surreal.
Photographer: Edward T. Cooke (edwardcooke.co.uk) via fiasco plus
It seems pretty clear to me that Emily is gonna come back from her “photography internship,” which is probably code for “a wild affair with Frankie Alan,” and immediately enter into an erotic triad with Effy and Naomi. A girl can dream.
While I dream softly to myself, here are some videos relevant to your interests:
Lily Loveless’ Top Five Skins Moments:
Kaya, Kat & Lily Discuss New Skins:
Behind-the-Scenes with Kaya Scodelario & Jack O’Connell
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you for more Skins?
I guess I’m excited. But in any case, seeing a grown-up Naomily will warm my heart; and if all else fails and they do get fucked up, I have two remedies; one, fanfiction. Two, the plethora of new queer web series popping up left and right that can assuage my feels and three…alcohol and food.
four…watching clips from old seasons on youtube
surprisingly it’s Cassie whom I’m most excited to see again. I guess the naomily intense feelings wore off.
I’m actually excited to see what’s happened to Cook since we last left him. I have always liked Jack O’Connoll as an actor while I don’t particularly care for Effy as a character so unless Naomily has a big role in these two episodes I’m kind of meh about the whole thing.
I AM SO EXCITED FOR CASSIE
Kaaaaaaaaat
12/10 in terms of excitement. They announced this SO long ago and they’ve taken so long to actually give a release date that I’ve just built an unhealthy amount of expectation for it
honestly i’d completely forgotten about it altogether, it was so long ago – heather hogan mentioned skins fire in an email last week and i was like WHAT? WHAT IS SKINS FIRE? TELL ME MORE ABOUT THIS STRANGE BEAST!? and then today when some pictures popped up on tumblr i decided to write a thing about it. then i checked to make sure nobody else on the team had already written about it and (editorial assistant) bren pulled up an article that i had actually already written about it last year. which means that just like the kids from skins, i did too much drugs in my youth and am now paying the price with less brain cells
I’ve been keeping track because I’m subscribed to Skins on Youtube and they kept uploading videos, but I also got frustrated ’cause they never hinted when any of this would be coming out. I’d also read an article that said it’d be out around March which clearly wasn’t true, so I’m happy now that it’s starting in two weeks and I don’t have to wait much longer.
I’m saddened by the lack of gen 1 in series 7. I guess everyone’s busy? Maybe? I’m having a hard time caring about this even though I want to because I was just so madly in love with everybody in the first two series’ and I never got into Naomily because I just hated everyone in gen 2 so much. I’m pretty sure this is an unpopular opinion in the fandom, but whatevs. I just couldn’t get attached to anyone.
Half of Gen 1’s cast is pretty busy. For example, I knew we would never see Nicholas Hoult on the show again because he’s too busy making movies. The new X-Men is shooting right now.
i definitely liked gen 1 better than gen 2 as well, rachel. but cassie was my favorite and we have cassie so i’m happy about that. dev patel has done really well in movies and TV too — i’m sort of glad for the lack of nicholas hoult though because tony was a dick and/or sociopath and/or narcissist and i don’t want him back in my life really at all not even a little bit
Yeah, I’m reasonably sure Joe Dempsie could have come back, but obviously that wouldn’t happen unless ZOMBIE CHRIS? And I’m really curious what happened to Jal but idk if anyone cared enough about her (I don’t even know the actress’s name. oop.)
Cassie was one of my faves too, Riese, so I’m really glad we’re getting her, at least. I just would have loved to have Anwar/Maxxie in my life again. Le sigh.
It depends on when this Skins was shot. Joe’s role on Game of Thrones is a little bigger than Hannah’s but there was also the matter of Chris being dead. Honestly, Cassie was really the best choice in terms of Gen 1 coming back. I would have liked to have seen Maxxie as well but I guess you can’t have everything.
Strange reaction, but I’m glad that they’ve let the characters look old, tired.
I’m also tentatively (after the series 6 and Skins US messes) excited about this.
It breaks my heart to see Cassie (still) looking so sad and lost– oh how I know that feeling!
Loved the Waiting for Godot mention in the caption though, it made me giggle :) autostraddle is so smart and cool gah
Skins is like a nostalgic Polaroid photo from long ago, and it has been a while now since S1~S4. I completely forgot about the movie and I didn’t watch S5S6, so I just kinda lost touch with this series.
But can I just say that trailer is so beautiful it hurts. The simplicity and the interchanging scenes and the music. Brought back a lot of feelings.
to be honest, I’m a little nervous for Fire. nothing can top the end of Katie/Emily’s episode in series 3 for me in terms of Naomily euphoria, so I’m more going to actively look forward to checking in with Cassie and Effy, both of whom I always loved observing and just going along for the ride. I’m a little annoyed they won’t tell us if Cassie and Sid ever had any sort of happy ending though.
Cook always pissed me off and it looks like his episodes will be more of the same for him, so I might actually skip it unless I hear of other characters popping up. I did love his friendship with Naomi.
So, so excited for this! Cassie, Effy and Cook were three of my all time favorites, so I’m thrilled about the focus of these episodes.
Am I the only queermo who doesn’t like the Naomi/Emily relationship? I’d heard so many people saying how great their relationship is, so when I actually watched the series I was super disappointed to see how horribly they treated each other and how they made each other so miserable. Meh. Don’t care for it.
Maybe in the new episode, they’ll have grown up and gotten over their shit, at least a little.
I love the idea of Skins Redux, but to be honest I don’t care at all for Cook episode since I wasn’t particularly invested in his character throughout Gen 2.
I think a better idea would be for each episode to focus on a character from each Gen – Gen 3 in Series 5 was my absolute favourite (although I would very much like to pretend that the disaster that was Series 6 never existed). Perhaps an episode focusing on Franky (BUT NOT S6!EFFY-CLONE!FRANKY DEAR GOD NO), perhaps with Rich/Grace on the side and lots and lots of Minky interaction? I JUST REALLY WANT MORE GEN 3 WITHOUT THE S6 CHARACTERIZATIONS.
I JUST REALLY WANT MORE GEN 3 WITHOUT THE S6 CHARACTERIZATIONS.
SO MUCH THIS
franky was my all time favorite…before the writers decided they couldn’t deal.
Looks like my favourite ship gets back together: Cassie + Bench:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=627888500571861&set=pb.572039822823396.-2207520000.1371552699.&type=3&theater
two thoughts here:
1. how did i not know this was already on???
2. thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to direct these Skins promos, David Lynch’s weirdo son.