Another website I visited recently pointed out that the Skins formula is becoming very obvious and a little bit repetitive. Focus on one character, reveal that no matter how together they seem on the surface, their lives are a snakepit, build to some form of a resolution where there appears to be a kind of coming to terms with problems. This episode fits perfectly.
Turns out Alo lives on a small farm owned by his parents and he'd rather spend his time masturbating to Internet porn, smoking dope, and hanging out with his friends than helping them out. Symbolic incident: he has to pick stones out of the path of the tractor his father is driving to turn over the soil. In the way is a big lump of rock which Alo vainly tries to wrestle out of the ground. His father tells him to leave it because it's always been there. Translation: this is the way things have always been done; there's no need to change.
But change is what Alo wants. He doesn't want to be bound by the stuffy ways of his parents. After yet another row because they're taking him out of Roundview because his grades stink, he invites the gang round for the afternoon and they make a mess of the farmyard by throwing eggs and flour bombs at each other. Alo decides to go the whole hog and get them to invite everyone they know for a party.
(At the party, a guy tries to dance with and grope Frankie who isn't having it. He gets annoyed, calls her a lesbian and pushes her and Nick slams him against the wall. Frankie rushes outside where's she's joined by Liv who tells her it doesn't matter to them if she's gay, they're just curious. My opinion: she isn't, she likes Matty. Or, she just might not be sure what she is.)
Parents arrives, kids scarper, Dad collapses.
But it's only due to high blood pressure. Alo eventually goes home. He goes out into the field with his father and the tractor, ties a rope around the rock and, with Dad's approval, uses the tractor to get the rock from the ground. Audience wipes a tear from the corner of their eye.
Next episode is about the loveable Grace who, from the trailer, looks as if she might be bi-polar.
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