Beau Mirchoff, Ashley Rickards
Awkward., Season 4, Episode 12: “Finals”
Written by Leila Cohan-Miccio
Directed by Rebecca Asher
Airs Tuesdays at 10pm EST on MTV
The fourth season of Awkward. reached its midseason finale with Eva showing her true colours, seemingly getting pregnant just as Sadie discovered the truth about her. With Jenna’s relationship suffering as a result of her attempts to help Matty, the midseason premiere opens with Jenna trying to make amends with Luke as the senior year students prepare for finals, in a pleasant return for the show that clears out two key elements of the season’s first half.
The writers’ decision to effectively end, with emphasis, both Jenna and Matty’s relationships is an intriguing start to the second half of the season, particularly with regards to Matty. With the latter’s adoption dominating much of his thoughts over the course of the season, it would be understandable to think that he’d be more susceptible to Eva’s con. However, Matty’s ability to believe his friends and see through Eva’s ruse, as well as his firm dismissal of her, is a promising development, and may indicate that he’s in the acceptance stage of dealing with his adoption. Whether or not any other bad news causes him to regress, or whether Eva tries a new con on him or a member of his circle of friends, will be very telling as the season continues.
Having Jenna’s relationship with Luke end similarly affects Jenna. While their time together was not as tumultuous as Matty and Eva, it was formative in a different way, giving Jenna a glimpse of what college really entailed, while also providing a perspective beyond her other friends. With finals now over, and college admissions on the horizon, it will be intriguing to see how Jenna’s perception about high school and college change over the rest of the year. With Luke now gone, her focus is entirely on high school, which is likely to bring into focus the fact that her friends are unlikely to all end up in the same place after high school. With hints of this already given earlier in the season, with Tamara and Jenna’s wildly divergent college experiences, how Jenna deals with the uncertainty of her post-high school life has the potential to be fascinating.
The removal of two major characters opens up the second half of the season to go in any number of creative directions. It’s sad to see Eva go without having a proper throwdown with Sadie, but with the possibility of her return in the air, there may still be a chance. With Jake and Tamara seemingly having buried the hatchet, and with finals now over, it will be interesting to see how the latter deals with the winding down of senior year now that the admissions process is out of her hands. Lissa’s continued tryst with Tyler is a bit of an odd storyline, as it appears that Lissa is the only one ignorant of Tyler’s education and apparent prior wealth, yet none of the other characters have mentioned anything to either of them in this regard. How this storyline plays out, as well as how characters such as Jake and Sadie deal with senior year, will be worth watching for as the season continues.
– Deepayan Sengupta