‘CLIQUE’ SEASON 2: EPISODE 1 & 2 REVIEW
“Let’s not be as stupid as we were last year.”
Darkness is inviting and pervasive. That’s the underlining theme in the recent season of Clique. This time around, we’re looking at how an all boy squad deals with the same type of dysfunction that the girls encountered in the first season.
The British thriller series which was released in 2017 has slowly won awareness from those who are part of the cult fans of British coming of age series. This show which was written by Jess Britain is especially dark, almost akin to the vibe of shows like the US series “Pretty Little Liars” and “Sharp Objects”.
The main character of Clique, Holly McStay (Synnove Karlsen), is very curious to a fault. She harbours a darkness, heavy shame, and guilt from a childhood mistake that led to the death of a young girl. This guilt followed her as she grew up and forced her to develop an unhealthy attachment to her friend Georgia Cunningham (Aisling Franciosi) who warmly embraced her, even when others shunned her. Since she’s unable to truly confront this part of herself, her darkness follows her and leads her into trouble even as she enters university.
The essence of the first season was to set the scene, show that though Holly had the propensity to be dark and do evil, she could overcome it. There were a lot of shocking twists throughout the show that made for a pleasurable watch.
We discovered later that the master mind behind all the problems was her old friend Rachel (Rachel Maddox), a sociopath who was trying to pull Holly into the darkness.
Put plainly, it was confusing because the ending didn’t follow the direction of the story-line. It felt like Rachel being the antagonist came out of nowhere.
However, in the first episode of Season 2, it’s all starting to tie together. It’s now clear that the real focus of the show is to acknowledge that the people who are often committing crimes are actually young; not the usual suspects.
If you really look at the stats, crime is a young person’s game. Most crimes are committed by the youth yet our society has somehow managed to depict children as saintly and pure. This show, like “Sharp Objects” and “Pretty Little Liars”, have endeavored to turn those ideas right on their heads. They warn that the youth can be just as dark as the old, so be careful.
Let’s recount some of the important events from the first episode of Season 2. The audience is introduced to new roommates Rayna (Imogen King) and Fraser (Stuart Campbell). Holly meets Jack (Leo Suter) by chance. She is drawn to something about Jack but she’s not sure why. They met up later at a party where things go awry. The ending of the episode shows a chilling scene where two masked guys are laughing as they attack Holly’s new roommates.
The events seem important because Jack has trouble with his memory, and so perhaps a lot of the unknown answers to questions that arise throughout episode 2 will be solved ones we see things from the perspective of Jack and gain insight into his thoughts in episode 1.
Still, the second episode of Clique helped audiences collect their thoughts and understand a bit of what happened. Rayna said that one of the people who attacked them was Jack! Also, noteworthy, Fraser seems afraid of Rayna and told Holly she was laughing when he was getting attacked. What does that mean? Did Jack really attack Rayna? Was She somehow involved? If season one is any indication, the suspects are likely the least obvious characters.
Quite frankly, Holly is annoying in this season because none of these issued would have arisen for her if she didn’t involve herself with other people’s problems and seek a relationship with a person who she knows is questionable and suspicious. She told Rachel that there is something dark about him and still she wants to be involved with him.
It seems really like she is not able to be content unless she has the thrill of being around danger. Like Rachel said to Elizabeth (Sorcha Groundsell) in the first season, “maybe she likes it.”
As frustrating as it is to watch Holly, it’s hard to deny that the show is moderately entertaining. It’s not great, the plots whole are plentiful and the character developments in the show feel lazy and random at times but, it can pass the time. We can only hope that the characters will be smarter this time. Louise put it nicely, “Let’s not be as stupid as we were last year.”