Overview

Despite senior status, some old issues from sophomore, and junior, year still haunt Jenna.

Episode 2 – Listen to This

Review (with Spoilers)

Despite the season 3 finale implying Jenna was going to learn to be her own woman, among other things, it seems we are going to pretend that didn’t happen. For, seemingly, without the foundation of her being set for college, her self-esteem has hit a new low and seemingly she looks toward Matty to fix this. Problem is, while Jenna is trying to make up for her wasted junior year, other people are focusing on problems which can be in their future.

Topic 1: Friendship Drama – Sadie

To start things off, with Sadie’s secret of being poor revealed, you sort of get to understand why she wants to be cheer captain. For one, she is going to need a scholarship to go to college, and being that she isn’t top of the class, everything helps. Also, it is the last remnant of her former power. However, with Lissa having said role, Sadie’s only power is in her insults. Of which it seems only Jenna really gets.

But, with Sadie trying to be secretive about her job, especially since Lissa can’t keep her mouth shut, she tries to leave practice early and seemingly gets kicked off the team. This ultimate betrayal puts Lissa and Sadie’s friendship in jeopardy and makes for some very odd scenes. In a way, it also looks like a slight jab at Faking It the way Sadie and Lissa act when it comes to their relationship, but it all ends well with their version of a bromance seemingly coming back together. Well, except for Sadie still not being cheer captain.

Topic 2: Relationship Drama – Tamara

Those two aren’t the only ones with relationship issues though. With Tamara elevating herself, Jake seems lost and his venture into music isn’t the most welcomed change, as the season premiere alluded to. What makes things worse though is that Tamara increasingly is giving underhanded compliments, if that, and Jake is getting tired of having a non-supportive girlfriend.

However, Tamara thinks the two of them are fine, and seemingly wants them to be together solely because she wants to do all the things a senior couple would do. Love, and the fact he was her first, I feel are secondary. Unfortunately for her though, it seems Jake has had enough and decides to breakup. Which, at first, seemingly bothers Tamara, but with her toothbrush and a stacked schedule, she seems ready to move on to greener pastures.

Topic 3: Relationship Drama – Jenna

Leaving us with Jenna who seems so unlike that cool, calm, and collected girl we left last season with. The blow of being so low on the class ranking has seemingly sent her character almost back to the girl we met sophomore year. She is insecure, almost begging for validation from Matty, and just plain lost. What doesn’t help matters though is she has an accident during Jake’s video shoot which leads to a chipped tooth, and her mom just figuring that getting her teeth pulled minas well be done during the procedure.

With this, Jenna is forced to reflect a lot and rather than try to find that girl who seemingly was going to dominate senior year, she finds herself right back to wondering why Matty isn’t texting her back, ignoring her, and acting so strange? For, after them having sex, he is sort of acting like how he used to when he was ashamed of her. So, once her mouth heals from her teeth being pulled, she goes off on Matty not realizing that perhaps he may have his own issues. For while, as she notes, he is not a man of many words, we musn’t forget that his family has gone through a lot. Be it his parents’ divorce, or the issues of his brother, just because Matty sometimes seems simple doesn’t mean he has a simple life. In fact, something is revealed to him which makes him want to go to a faraway college which will get him away from his family. Said reveal? He is adopted. Something which, seemingly, Matty likely didn’t want to burden Jenna with since their relationship is hardly defined. Are they screw buddies, friends again, trying to mend their relationship, or what? Either way, Jenna pushing to make Matty’s silence about her, as he deals with this new information, will surely not help whatever perception he had of what they could be.

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Episode 3 – Touched by an Angel

Overview

Jenna and Tamara take different methods when it comes to dealing with their exes.

Review (with Spoilers)

Being that Awkward is only a half hour, almost as soon as you start getting into the episode’s story, either a commercial pops up or the episode is over. And with that, as much as I like the development of Jenna over the episode, and seeing Tamara freak out, it is hard to really feel invested for they run through everything so quickly. Almost to the point where I’d almost prefer to wait until the season ends to have a marathon. But since I don’t have the patience for that, I watch and try to be satisfied with this red light, green light, style of storytelling.

Topic 1: Peer Counseling – Jenna, Tamara, Lissa and Sadie

With peer counseling being Jenna’s only curricular activity, and I guess the writers thinking the program needed to be beefed up to be relevant, we find members of the cheer squad: Lissa, paired with a Muslim girl; Sadie, paired with an exchange student named Sheree; Tamara paired with Kaitlyn, who seems like a freshman version of her; Emma has this pure of heart girl; and Jenna is left with this girl, named Angel, who is Hannah Mclalwain from The Glee Project. However, that bubbly persona on The Glee Project is replaced with a sort of misguided bad ass.

Well, momentarily anyway. For, like every girl paired up, they change over the episode. Sheree becomes a Spanish version of Sadie, with “De Nada” being her catch phrase; Kaitlyn, well we don’t really see Kaitlyn much after she ditches Tamara to be a Jake groupie; Emma’s freshman she tries to turn into a sexed up Olson twin; and Angel, after spending time with Jenna, seeing her make out with Matty, and meeting Jenna’s mom, decides she wants to be 16 and pregnant, with the amount of glee which shows the Hannah we know, and erases any bad ass assumptions originally made about the character. Oh, and as for Lissa, she is so enamored with the various levels of heaven in the Muslim religion that she now wears a hijab and who knows, maybe she will actually get a real storyline and convert? Oh who am I kidding? Lissa is never going to get an actual storyline.

Topic 2: Jealousy or Revenge? – Tamara & Jake

With Jake breaking up with Tamara, she is freaking out so much over how Jake may spin their breakup to the point she gets kind of annoying. But, her worries are validated when Jake “Taylor Swifts” her by singing a song called “Tomorrow Never Comes” which sounds like “Tamara never cums” which naturally pisses her off. But what makes things worse is Jake’s freshmen groupies, who make Tamara so jealous she decides to ban singing in the cafeteria, so Jake retaliates by inviting the girls to his place for a private concert.

So, being that Tamara isn’t ready to just let Jake go, she decides to make a fake profile and chat with Jake. Which, sooner or later, will be discovered, but it makes for a slightly interesting plot line. Though I honestly rather her venture of self-discovery, college applications, and being student body president be more featured. But when it comes to Tamara, boy drama pretty much has been her storyline since the beginning, even when they made her more than Jenna’s accessory.

Topic 3: It is time to DTR – Matty & Jenna

Speaking of Jenna, with the realization that perhaps she was a bit too self-absorbed, she decides to try to be a bit more friendly, calm down, and try to be friends with Matty. Problem is, with all that Matty is going through, it seems he just wants sex out of Jenna. So, they define their relationship as being friends with benefits, minus any type of friendship it seems. For, as Tamara notes, he basically is looking to use her like a sex toy more so than be a friend, and we see this for every time Jenna tries to talk about what he is going through, he decides to try to have sex with her instead. Which, despite Jenna’s claims of how she and Matty have a mature relationship, she realizes that they essentially are reverting back to how things were when they first met. Something Jenna isn’t willing to put up with so she decides to walk away from Matty and leave him to his troubles for now. Leaving the door wide open for Emma who seemingly is trying to become relevant on the show. Which maybe can only be done by making her Jenna’s rival.

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Episode 4 – Sophomore Sluts

Overview

It’s senior girls versus sophomore sluts, and Jenna is the culprit of some friendly fire.

Review (with Spoilers)

It is very weird to me how the show can go from seemingly like it is going to be deep and talk about personal issues some can relate to, and then go off and just be a slightly out there teen comedy. But, perhaps that is what makes this show lovable. Hence why we have Jenna’s character who acts as a sort of Debby Downer, then Tamara, Sadie, and everyone else, who helps liven things up.

Topic 1: Interpreting the Bible – Sadie

One way or another, Sadie plans on being cheer captain. Perhaps this maybe become a weekly venture for her? As for this episode’s attempt, she tries using the bible against Lissa, who has thrown away any sense of interest in being Muslim, in order to become cheer captain. She talks about how Judas and Lissa has the same amount of letters; how Jesus would feel about cheer outfits; and really tries to twist poor Lissa’s love for Jesus so that she could finally get what she wants. It doesn’t happen though.

Topic 2: Catfish – Tamara

With spirit week in full force, Tamara not only has her duties as president, but now she has taken on the task of catfishing Jake using a name like “Autumn San Diego” which has to be the fakest name I have ever heard. Yet, Jake seemingly hasn’t caught on yet. But, despite how much Tamara gives Jenna advice on moving on, it seems she is still unable to venture out and maybe find a new guy, or just be single.

Topic 3: Replaced – Jenna & Matty

Leaving us with the star of the show: Jenna. She is sinking worse and worse each episode since the only person who validates her existence seems to be, well no one honestly. Her mom still looks to live vicariously through her; Tamara wants to have the best senior year ever, almost by any means possible, and with her boyfriend dumping her, she wants to at least have senior moments with her best friend; and with Matty trying to revert their relationship back to them being sex buddies, she really has no one really trying to stick up for her it seems.

Then, to make things worse, she watches as new girl Eva swoops in, Mackenzie, and what are known as the sophomore sluts. All of which are hanging all over Matty and Jake in the skimpiest outfits ever. If they wore any less, this would look like soft-core porn on HBO. That aside, as the seniors lose game after game, Jenna tries to use their last chance, powder-puff football, as her comeuppance. Sadly for her though, they get trampled.

But while we watch Jenna have the blues about losing Matty, you can kind of see Matty act like how Jenna did last season, minus the drugs. He is essentially trying to escape and, as we know, has thus far been doing it through sex, but now he is really getting reckless. However, we get a few extra details in his adoption situation to understand why. For one, his parents and him have yet to talk about the adoption issue, and it is mostly because they aren’t aware he knows. And he tries to have a talk with his mom about it, but since she thinks what he is looking to talk about is the dent in his car, he decides to drop the subject.

One thing missing though is that, while Eva says she’ll back off for she is “chicks before dicks,” I must admit I would like to know what did they talk about? After all, this adoption plot is probably the biggest thing to happen to Matty which wasn’t something just put out there and scarcely visited. The situation with his brother I think was only talked about a handful of times, and outside of his brother, his focus has pretty much been on Jenna, or his story has been mostly about his place in Jenna’s life. But with this, as he does like Tamara and gets his own problems, which actually get focused on, I feel like we need to really be let into these chats. Much less, can they do something about Jake because with him not having Tamara, his relevance slips more and more each episode.

Things To Note

I realize now I have been calling Eva by the name Emma, but being that, apparently, without subtitles, I am an idiot, that is the only excuse I can give.