Jillian Rose Reed, Ashley Rickards, Elizabeth Whitson, Molly Tarlov
Awkward., Season 4, Episode 04: “Sophomore Sluts”
Written by Sarah Walker
Directed by Jay Karas
Airs Tuesdays at 10 PM on MTV
A loss of control and structure has been a running theme amongst the seniors over the course of the season, with Jenna, Sadie, Tamara, and Matty all experiencing this to varying degrees. This week’s episode sees the seniors face opposition from a new source in the form of the school sophomores, in an entertaining outing that sets the latter seniors towards their individual crossroads.
Tamara’s self-inflicted stress over the progression of her senior year continues to be compelling. With her prior relationship breakup, as well as the loss to the sophomore class this year, it’s clear that Tamara’s year is not going as envisioned. Furthermore, her desire to rekindle her relationship begins to infringe on her other activities this week. This means that, at some point, Tamara will have to go into self-examination to determine whether getting back together with Jake is worth potentially missing out on all the senior year accomplishments she set as her goals. What path she chooses, when she gets to that fork, will say a lot about what Tamara perceives as important, and it will be worth keeping an eye on the character to see how she makes this decision.
Matty’s continuing path of self-destruction is also a fascinating aspect of this week’s episode. Despite the presence of a support system both meaningful in the form of Eva and Jenna and superficial in the form of Jake and the sophomores, it’s clear that Matty is still having a difficult time coping. His interactions with Jenna last week indicated he’s not ready to face the fact that he’s adopted just yet, but it’s clear that his current path cannot continue for long. It will be interesting to see what action finally goes too far, and how he deals with things once that happens. As with the others, it is senior year for Matty as well, and the beginning of the season showed he had a clear concern about his college standing, a concern that is bound to return once he finally reconciles his issues. How he deals with the concern at that point will also be worth keeping an eye on.
Overall, this is a fun episode. The difference in the relationship between Sadie and Lissa continues to be intriguing and amusing, as the latter continues to firmly hold on to cheer captaincy despite all the efforts of the former. It will be interesting to see how far Sadie takes her attempts to regain the captaincy. Irreparable damage to her friendship with Lissa is a possibility if Sadie continues down this path, and whether she’s willing to risk that or not will say a lot about Sadie. The budding friendship between Jenna and Eva is also a touching aspect of the episode. In many ways, Eva is the type of person Jenna thought Collin was last year, and one who is seemingly in a good position to guide Jenna through senior year. How their friendship develops, as well as how Matty and Tamara deal with their issues, will be worth watching as the season continues.
– Deepayan Sengupta