Skins Rise

Skins Rise is a feature-length episode of the E4 television series Skins. Airing in two parts in 2013, the episode was the third and final episode of the specially-commissioned seventh season intended to bring the series to a close, and the final episode of the series. While in its initial six-year run Skins was a teen drama about the lives of Bristolian teenagers, Skins Rise like the two previous episodes, Skins Fire and Skins Pure, is a filmically and tonally distinct drama which revisits one of the show's characters as they face adulthood.

Rise focuses on the character of James Cook (Jack O'Connell). A womaniser, regular drug user and troublemaker in third and fourth series of Skins, Cook was last seen attacking his friend's killer. In the present, Cook is noticeably more subdued and serious, and clearly harrowed by the events of his past as he makes his living peddling drugs in Manchester's criminal underworld.^[1]

Synopsis

Part 1

Cook, now aged 21, is living in Manchester, and works as a drug peddler for Louie, a wealthy nightclub owner and drug baron, along with Louie's other employee, Jason, and his bodyguard, Rob. Having spent years on the run after killing John Foster, his friend Freddie's murderer, Cook sleeps in his car, and routinely has sex with Emma, his friend-with-benefits. He drives all over the city during the day, is noticeably subdued, and remains tight-lipped about his past, and everyone who knows him consider him to be a mysterious figure who randomly entered their lives. Besides Emma and Louie, he has no friends. One day, he is called to Louie's flat, and Louie asks him to drive his girlfriend, Charlie, who is house hunting, and he agrees. While swimming in the indoor swimming pool of one of the houses they are looking at, Charlie tries to encourage Cook to join her, but he simply refuses. Frustrated, she asks him to tell her about his past, but he brushes this aside as well, and instead drops her off at her chosen destination, although he becomes suspicious when she asks to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere, near a housing development, but promises not to breathe a word to Louie. He later discusses this with Jason, who is likewise confused. As he continues to drive Charlie around, however, she flirts with him more, and continues to press him to reveal more details of his past to her, but he refuses.

Later, while attending one of Louie's parties with Emma, Cook takes some drugs that Jason gave him, but they make him throw up. While Emma goes to get him a drink of water, he hears loud noises in the parking lot, and comes across Jason having sex with Charlie, to her fright. Jason violently beats Cook up, and threatens him if he mentions anything to Louie. Emma finds Cook in a state, and takes him back to her flat to clean him up. While there, they discuss the possibility of packing up and leaving Manchester for good, when Cook suddenly gets a call from Charlie asking him to meet her, and Emma becomes suspicious. Realising that there is more to him than she has realised, she pushes him to tell her why he was beaten up, and, more importantly, what he has been running from for so long, but he doesn't say a word. She attempts to leverage him by threatening to kick him out of her flat, but he just picks up his shirt and walks out. Cook meets Charlie, who apologises for the night before. He warns her that she must be very careful with Louie, because he is a very powerful and dangerous person. When she demands to know why he thinks he can tell her what to do, he explains that he knows more about this violent criminal underworld that they are in than she does. She demands he tell her what has happened to him, and he admits that he has killed someone. Charlie tells him that he is a very kind and sexy person, and they kiss, before proceeding to have sex. They are interrupted by Louie calling Cook, telling him to bring Charlie to their new house for a house warming party. There, Cook finds that Jason and Rob are there as well. As they talk, Louie suddenly reveals that he knows that Charlie has been cheating on him, making Cook worry that he might've heard them over the phone. Louie makes out that he is fine with Charlie's betrayal, but is planning to "streamline" his operation. He then signals Rob, who gets up, and grabs Jason by the neck. Louie calmly reveals that he knows that Jason was the one who had sex with Charlie, and despite Jason's protests, Rob brutally drowns him in Louie's new swimming pool. Looking visibly shaken, Charlie watches in silence and is then led to another room by Louie, who presumably intends to rape her, or to punish her. Horrified, Cook goes to Emma's and tells her to pack, as they must run away, and he promises to tell her everything in the car. As they are driving out of Manchester, Cook gets a call from a traumatised Charlie, who begs him to pick her up from the nearby bus station. Realising that Louie has done something terrible to her, he turns his car around and goes to rescue her, against Emma's wishes.

Part 2

After having fled Manchester, Cook, Emma and Charlie have been driving for hours in silence, and eventually arrive at a country manor owned by Emma's middle class parents in the Midlands. They manage to get in with the spare key, but are confronted by Emma's temperamental father and level-headed mother, who have mixed reactions at seeing her, implying she may have had a falling out with her father. Nevertheless, they agree that they may stay for a couple of days. As they are about to go to sleep, Emma has an argument with Charlie, realising she had sex with Cook, and goes to confront him, demanding that he tell her exactly what happened. He simply tells her that he messed up, and initiates sex with her. However, she realises that he is more attracted to Charlie than her and leaves. The next day, Emma's parents leave after Cook causes a scene at their local pub. Before they do so, however, Louie unexpectedly turns up, having tracked Cook's car with an app on his phone. He tries to persuade Charlie to come home with him, but she coldly refuses, reminding him that he killed a man in front of her. Seemingly dejected, he returns to his car and drives off. Cook is not convinced he will give up, though, and orders the girls to pack up, and tells them they are walking, even though it is snowing outside.

As they walk, Emma and Charlie continue to clash, but Cook silences them when he spots something in the distance - it is Emma's parents' car, which has been pushed off the road. They discover it empty of Emma's parents, and the shotgun Emma's father had brought with him. Cook realises that Louie has taken it, and quickly urges them to run off into the woods. When they have run far enough, Charlie tries to calm the now-hysterical Emma, while Cook goes out to try to find Emma's parents. He sees Louie's car and approaches, when there are three gunshots, most likely the sound of Louie shooting Emma's parents and Rob. Sensing danger, Cook quickly returns to the girls, and they flee. Eventually, they find an abandoned wooden bunker, and shelter there. Worried that Emma's screaming will give them away, Charlie eventually gives her some sedatives she had in her purse. As they wait for morning, Charlie and Cook debate what to do, and Charlie concludes that the only way to resolve everything is to kill Louie. Cook refuses, as killing a man is the worst thing that he ever did, and he lives with it every day. Charlie urges him to choose her over Emma, and they kiss. Unbeknownst to them, however, Emma wakes up and sees them.

In the early hours of the morning, Cook wakes up and discovers that Emma has left. Abandoning all effort at hiding, he goes out and shouts her name, to Charlie's fright. Their search eventually takes them to an empty field where Louie is waiting for them, with Emma's dead body hanging by a noose from a nearby tree (whether Louie killed her himself, helped her commit suicide or merely decided to wait by her body is not specified). As Charlie falls to her knees and begins crying, Cook, filled with rage, calmly approaches. Louie draws the gun, and tells Cook that he is going to shoot him. Cook demands that, after he has killed him, Louie must not kill Charlie, or anyone else, before revealing he had had sex with Charlie, and will always have that over him. Louie, who had not known about their dalliance, and thought that Cook was only assisting her, is profoundly hurt by this revelation, and momentarily lowers his guard. Seeing an opportunity, Cook tricks him into thinking Charlie is about to ambush him from behind, and then quickly attacks, knocking the gun out of his hands and wrestling with him. Cook eventually gains the upper hand, and knocks Louie unconscious, before picking the gun up and taking aim. Charlie demands that he pull the trigger, but, after a moment's thought, Cook decides he hasn't got it in him to kill another person, and simply fires the last shot into the air.

Later, Cook wakes Louie up and informs him that the police are on their way, and he will face a very long prison sentence when he is arrested. He then goes to Louie's car, where Charlie is in the drivers' seat, and tells her to drive as far as she can, ditch the car and disappear forever. She asks if she will ever see him again, and he says that they will not. After Charlie drives off, Cook approaches Emma's body, which he has covered with a jacket, and crouches over it mournfully, in a moment of silence. Now on the run again, having witnessed more death, and his life in tatters once more, Cook walks off into the distance, ending the episode, and the series.

Reception

Part 1 received favourable reviews, with Caroline Preece of Den of Geek commenting that "those who loved the character are still going to find Rise a compelling watch. It’s grim, but in an entirely different way to Effy or Cassie’s stories, and it somehow makes perfect sense to find him in this heightened world a million miles away from the ordinary world of Skins."^[2] Morgan Jeffrey of Digital Spy, meanwhile, noted that the episode "thrills in a way that its predecessors didn't - it's plenty dark in places, but also engaging and outlandish in all the ways that classic Skins was."^[3] And James T. Cornish of WhatCulture! praised Liam Boyle's performance, describing him as "a decent villain" and that Boyle "really helps to flesh out the character and make him feel like a potent threat."^[4]

References