"Cassie" (Episode 1.02)

"Cassie" is the second episode of Series 1.

This episode primary focuses on Cassie Ainsworth and her struggles after exiting a treatment facility to help with her eating disorder along with her growing attraction to Sid Jenkins.

Plot
Cassie slowly wakes up to find herself on someone’s sofa with a hand covered in goo. This is the aftermath of a party, with food all over the floor and up the walls, and half naked teenagers passed out everywhere. She is sharing the sofa with Maxxie, who is still asleep. Cassie gets up to inspect the devastation around her while she gets dressed. On the other sofa, Chris is asleep, naked and with a “I like boys” sign pointing to his butt. As Cassie watches him, he turns over, getting a “wow” from her. Jal, who’s just woken up on the other side of the room says they’re “all the same size at action stations”. Feeling sorry for Chris, Cassie rearranges his covers so he looks bigger by creating a tent shape. Moving towards the kitchen, Cassie finds four more passed out people in the dining room. From the kitchen she sees Anwar praying in the garden. Getting some water from the fridge, Cassie sees the 13th marked on the calendar as “Mum home”.

She checks the date with Anwar, who confirms that it’s the 13th. This means that Michelle’s mother will be home soon, but Anwar isn’t bothered as he’s trying to pray to his god, although he hopes he isn’t listening, as he’ll hear about all those pills he had last night. Upstairs, Cassie finds Michelle and Tony in bed, and Sid on the floor in one of the bedrooms. Cassie tries to wake Michelle to warn her that her mother is home today, but in her half asleep state, Michelle calls Cassie a “crazy bitch” on hearing her name. Cassie agrees, but carries on trying to remind her about her mother. Michelle doesn’t listen and goes back to sleep. In the mirror, Cassie puts on her red lipstick and removes the “virgin” sign stuck to Sid’s forehead and kisses him.

Cassie leaves the house to head home. As she reaches the front gate, she sees Michelle’s mother getting out of the car, having already come back from honeymoon.. Michelle’s mother, Anna, introduces Cassie to her new husband Malcolm saying they’ve had a great time. Malcolm looks less than impressed with the experience. Anna tells Cassie that she has an important meeting today, with clients coming to look at her curtain designs. Cassie says her goodbyes, calling Malcolm “Martin” as she leaves. Anna heads inside and soon, loud screaming can be heard from outside. Almost immediately, half naked teenagers led by Maxxie pour out of the windows and doors and escape to freedom by running down the road.

On the bus on the way home, Cassie is surrounded by people eating. She finds a note stuck to her back reading “Eat” and looks around seeing everyone else eating chips, crisps and chocolate. A child in front her offers Cassie a chocolate biscuit, but she refuses as she feels that she must not eat.

Arriving home, Cassie hears laughing from the kitchen and finds her mother in a compromising position with Cassie’s dad. Her father, still distracted, asks Cassie if she had anything for breakfast. She lies that she’s had some of Michelle crazy bacon, egg and sausage sandwiches for breakfast. Her dad goes off to take a shower. Cassie offers to feed her baby brother, Ruben, while her mother runs off to join him in the shower. Cassie feeds Ruben, then changes his soiled diaper and puts him to bed. Sitting down, she hears her mother and father in the shower, so she switches on Ruben’s musical mobile to drown out the noise, but it doesn’t help much. Looking around see grabs a pouch from beside Ruben's bed she opens it up to happily find a pill. Hearing her phone bleep, Cassie finds a text message reading “Eat”, then sender unknown. Instead, she takes a pill and washes it down with some of Ruben’s juice.

Later, her dad is in the conservatory painting with an easel and palette. Cassie comes in and he asks her what she thinks of his painting. He’s painting another portrait of Cassie’s mum in the nude to do with the others spread throughout the house. Cassie tells them that her taxi has arrived for her last visit to the clinic. After a quick round of congratulations from her dad, Cassie is completely ignored again, so she leaves.

In the taxi, Cassie examines a series of weights and stuffs some of them down her skirt. The driver asks about what she’s doing, but she asks if he’d tell on her. Alan replies that he’d never do that. She tells him that they’ll sign her out of the clinic if she’s half a kilo up. Alan admits that he’ll miss their little trip together in the taxi. She assures him that she’s going to eat properly this time, but he’s not convinced. He changes the radio station to one playing the song "Move Bitch" by Ludacris.

They arrive at the Restoration Clinic, a large converted stately house. She gets out of the taxi and goes inside. First, she is weighed by a stern looking nurse, who doesn’t believe the weight machine’s reading so she has Cassie turn out her pocket. This makes no difference so the nurse is forced to accept the reading. After leaving the assessment room, Cassie encounters another girl in the waiting area who is frantically drinking two whole bottles of water in one go. She tells Cassie she is going it to weight more, just as Cassie did with the weights in the taxi. The girl then gets quit anxious to get her weighing done as she now desperately needs the toilet. Unable to hold it any longer, she runs off to the bathroom, but there’s already someone in there.

Cassie meets with the doctor, who times the meeting on a stop clock. The doctor quickly runs through a checklist of Cassie’s progress without even asking her about most of the answers. The phone rings, which the doctor answers. She quickly turns away from Cassie and, addressing someone called Abigail (the girl from the party in Episode 1), has a go at her again for ruining her carpets with a party. She says she’s not an “expletive bitch”, she is her mother and tells Abigail to take her medication, slamming the phone down. Turning back to Cassie, but not remembering her name, the doctor explains that should she have difficultly in the future, she is always welcome to come back. However Cassie is distracted by the goings on outside, in which a man with no pants is being chased around the grounds by an orderly. The nurse joins the two and, taking the man by the family jewels, leads him back inside. Cassie thanks the doctor, who allows “Carrie” to leave. As the doctor adds up her fee, Cassie kisses her on the cheek, getting a mixture of horror and happiness from the doctor.

In her support group, Cassie receives a round of applause for her progress from her fellow patients. The next patient to share with the group is Madison, Madison Twatter, the drug dealer. Immediately, Twatter has a go at another patient for staring at him, but then explains that he’s been trying to tell himself that’s oversensitive and has got rid of the voices. Twatter goes on to relate how he gave a kid credit in a business deal they had arranged, which displays he has trust in other people. However, he is annoyed that he hasn’t been repaid, calling his customer a “fat f***”, but he can’t get away, as Twatter has the customer’s student photo ID card. Cassie recognizes the person in the photo as Sid. The doctor says it’s probably all just a misunderstanding. Twatter hints that he has a plan to fix his problem.

In the school canteen, Sid orders chips, and lots of them. He goes to pay, and asks the dinner lady “what are we?” She replies a pilchard, and is seen to be dressed head to toe in a fish costume as part of some stupid school initiative to promote the healthiness of fish. Sid takes a fish, saying he’s into long life. The dinner lady turns to a picture of Jamie Oliver, calling him a “smart arse blonder f***er”. So true. Sid goes over to sit with Anwar, Maxxie, Chris and Kenneth. They all immediately point out the big lipstick kiss mark on his forehead he got from Cassie. Kenneth gets over excited and takes the joke too far, killing it and embarrassing himself. Sid just walks away to sit at another table while attention turns to annoying Kenneth. Cassie soon joins Sid at his table. He says he came to school straight from Michelle’s, despite now being fully dressed when he wasn’t on leaving Michelle’s house. He continues that Tony had to go and beat up Malcolm as he’s a “total fucking wanker”.

Cassie catches him by surprise when she says that he must love Tony as he talks about him all the time. Seeing Sid’s plate of chips, Cassie rearranges them into neat lines. Sid asks if she’s going to eat the apple she brought with her. She says she will, but really won’t. Cassie tells Sid she likes him, so she’s going to show him that she can eat. Just as she’s about to, she changes the subject to Sid’s student card, asking where it is. She keeps talking and cutting up food, but doesn’t actually get around to eating it. Sid isn’t convinced she’s better, she Cassie says it’s no one else’s business, not that they care anyway. Said says he cares, but before Cassie can reply, Tony comes over and starts talking about pilchards and then asks Cassie how life is in “Dippy World”. Tony points out the lipstick on Sid’s forehead, but he doesn’t know who kisses him. Tony also says he Sid stinks, which Sid explains away as not having time, but Tony says he had time to go home, shower, gone his chi, had a wank, undermined his dad, got changed and did his English coursework, which Sid hasn’t done. Tony’s insulting of Sid annoys Cassie, who subtly causes Tony’s plate to tip all over him. The others notice this, and as usual, Kenneth takes it too far and gets a punch from Tony for his trouble. Tony storms out, and Sid goes to follow, but not before Cassie tells him Mad Twatter has his ID card and is out looking for him to get his drugs back. After Sid leaves, Cassie sees another “Eat” message written in chips on Sid’s plate.

In the women’s changing rooms, Tony is drying his pants under the hand dryer. Angie, the psychology teacher comes out of a shower cubicle completely naked and unaware he is there, but not for long. Tony explains that he’s only in there for the dryer as the men’s one is broken. Angie quickly covers herself up as Sid comes in as well, followed by Chris. Chris starts talking about Kenneth crying, but soon notices Angie stood there and immediately shoves Tony and Sid out of the room. Chris sneaks back into the changing room to try to get another look an Angie.

From the second floor, Cassie watches Sid walk down a corridor, reminding herself that he like her, but finds she is attracting attention from a fat kid and an old teacher. “Bugger” is her response to this as she moves away.

In the psychology room, Sid is worrying about Twatter and his ID card, when Angie walks in. She says he shouldn't go into the staff showers, but he explains he’s in a crisis. Angie, believing this to be about her, says she’s quite confident about her body and that adult bodies can be overwhelming for younger people. However Sid quickly tells her he doesn’t care about her tits, which seems to disappoint her slightly. Angie offers him advice concerning his problem, but isn’t prepared for the story he tells her. All of her suggests fall flat for one reason or another. She agrees with him when he says he’s “fucked”. Sid gets up to leave as Chris comes in. He apologies for seeing her boobs, and her bum, and her… put is cut off before he can finish by Angie who accepts his apology. Chris gives her another look as he goes to leave, but she calls him back, saying he shouldn't look at a teacher like that. He compliments her mole, getting a big smile from her before she remembers what she just said to him.

In English, Cassie gets another “Eat” text message. She believes it is from Sid as he is using his phone at the moment as well. The teacher starts his lesson as Sid asks Tony what they’re going to do about the drugs. Tony says they’ll just improvise. The teacher continues that he’s going on a course so there’ll be a substitute teacher, who is on his way up now to say hello. Tony assures Sid that with 3000 student at the college, Twatter won’t be able to find him. The supply teacher arrives, and to everyone’s surprise, especially Sid’s, it’s Madison Twatter, PhD. Cassie shoots Sid a glance, knowing the trouble he’s in, just as Twatter asks what the Tom, the teacher, is staring at. Tom expects Twatter to start teaching next week, but he says he’s already started. Looking directly at Sid, he says he’s looking forward to working with them.

Outside, Sid is having a brown trousers moment while his friends try to calm him down and think of a solution. Not thinking of anything, everyone wanders off to their next lesson, saying they’ll think about it later, leaving Sid sitting on his own. He rings his mother, saying he has a problem, but has to leave a message on her answer phone instead. Cassie, having just come out of the school, sees him on his phone again just as own receives another “Eat” text message. She goes over to ask Sid how he is. She says that the texts he’s sending won’t make any difference, but he doesn’t know what she’s talking about as he has his own worries at the moment. Cassie tries to prove that Sid sent the messages by showing him her phone’s message history, but it’s empty. She imagined the whole thing as she thought Sid liked her. Embarrassed she runs off through the town and back home to her bedroom. In a drawer under her bed, she keeps a stock of chocolate bars and sweets. Taking a chocolate bar out, she s almost tempted to eat it, but puts it back and apparently calls the clinic instead.

That night, at a café, Cassie sits at the counter, when Alan her taxi driver arrives. She explains she’s having a few problems, and about Sid and the text messages. Alan says the messages are probably from herself, so she had permission to eat. She picks up a burger and prepares to take a bite, but changes the subject to how Alan’s day was. He doesn’t fall for it, so she finally takes her first bite of food…

Characters

 * Cassie Ainsworth
 * Tony Stonem
 * Michelle Richardson
 * Sid Jenkins
 * Chris Miles
 * Jal Frazer
 * Maxxie Oliver
 * Anwar Kharral
 * Posh Kenneth
 * Angie
 * Mad Twatter
 * Anna Richardson
 * Malcolm
 * Marcus Ainsworth
 * Margeritte Ainsworth
 * Reuben Ainsworth
 * Chris' mother
 * Victoria Stock

Music Feature in "Cassie"
Note: The music tracks listed below only refer to the music featured in the episode's initial airing. Many of the music tracks featured in this episode have been substituted for alternative tracks either for the BBC America airing or for both the US and UK home media release of Series 1.

Mogwai - "Cody"

John Spencer Blues Explosion - "Right Place Wrong Time"

Summer Night Air – "3-3"

No info - "La Donna E Mobile"

Lambchop - "The New Cobweb Summer"

Ludacris - "Move Bitch"

Shuggie Otis – "Aht Uh Mi Head"

The Sleepy Jackson - "This Day"

Donovan - "Atlantis"

Unseen Skins: Careers Advice
The Careers Advisor tries to find the key to unlock Chris, Jal and Sid's ideal job, with limited success.