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Thankfully, the improvements that Skins made with last week’s ‘Nick’ haven’t disappeared or been forgotten about. In fact, I’d probably say that ‘Alo,’ the sixth offering of the fifth series, is the strongest and most complete one so far. The episode centres on Aloysius "Alo" Creevey, who lives with his parents on a farm. Before this week, we didn’t know very much at all about Alo, other than that he appears to have a fairly juvenile perspective on the world, spends a lot of time in his van and is best friends with metalhead Rich. Along with bringing more clarity to the character, Thursday night’s episode also delivered an all-round solid hour of drama, and put things in motion that set up for the finale of the series.
The plot of the episode was relatively straightforward - Alo decides to go out with his friends to the pub on his birthday and as a result largely ignores all the work on the farm that he was meant to do. After seeing his predicted exam results, his parents then come to the conclusion that the best course of action would be to take Alo out of Roundview College and have him at home working on the farm so that they can keep an eye on him.
Among the greatest tricks that a television writer can use is to put the viewer in a such a comfortable position that they feel like they know exactly where the story is going (at the fifteen minute mark, I felt certain I knew how it’d conclude) and then, during the episode, take the plot somewhere entirely unexpected but, somehow, completely understandable. It’s not necessarily as simple as a shocking twist, this technique is better described as a clever way of revealing details at a pace that plays out well and is surprising. In this episode, I doubt anybody watching would’ve guessed what eventually happened with Alo’s dad, and that’s something I really must commend Skins for pulling off.
In an earlier review, I said that I couldn’t really stand Alo for long periods of time and that his appeal was only ever momentary due to his puerile joking and attempts to have sex with anything and everything. I’m glad to say that the writers appear to have recognised the flaws with the character, and have taken great strides towards correcting them. The hour is full of realisations for Alo, most importantly, that the members of his close circle of friends (I still don’t quite understand how they all ended up being on such good terms) are growing up and that he’s being left behind.
This series of Skins is certainly one that is taking a little time to develop and grow into a show where the writers and actors are reliably providing effective television from each installment. In some ways, I feel like they’re getting there, especially with episodes like ‘Alo’. Next week’s Skins is all about Grace - it could potentially be very interesting as her character is one of the best acted roles of this cast and one that we still don’t know all that much about.
Skins airs on Thursdays at 10pm on E4.
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