Season 3, Episode 8 - Whisper to a Scream

Original Airdate - November 5th, 2003

Content warning - explicit discussions of self-harm

OOF! Big oof! This is a beast of an episode. Lots and lots of feelings crammed into a single episode. Maybe we didn’t need a two parter about Spinner’s homophobia so this could breathe more? Let’s just get into it.

Ellie’s dad is in the army and, because it’s 2003, he is shipping out to Kabul. This scene implies a lot of context really cleanly. It’s not the first time he’s been deployed. We get the sense that Ellie’s mom didn’t handle it well last time, and Ellie is worried. But at her mother’s insistence, they put on happy faces for her dad.

On the way to school the next day, Ashley checks in. Ellie says it’s no big deal. She’s focused on her co-op interview later that day. It’s for Caitlyn Ryan’s show and her main competition is Paige. Ellie is stressed. Plus Paige is being Paige. She tries to relate to Ellie about their stress, but is inadvertently (or maybe a little on purpose) rubbing the competition in her face. Ellie and Paige are famously not friends.

The stresses keep piling up. Ellie missed her math homework, which makes it a terrible day for a pop quiz. She totally fails, and tries to play it off with Marco. Marco comments that she’s so chill, and Ellie starts to open up, but then Marco is distracted by Dylan. Great.

Paige and Ashley join her for lunch and guidance counselor Ms. Sauvé comes to bring them an questionnaire for the interview. Paige tries to get a peak at Ellie’s and spills juice on her, staining her white shirt. Ellie rushes to the bathroom to try and fail to clean it off, and we can tell she’s really overwhelmed.

She shows up for her interview in a long coat. Her resume and responses are impressive, but she’s clearly very nervous and struggles to remember some details. I think it’s clear that Caitlyn likes her, but Ellie thinks she bombed.

She arrives home from the worst day ever to find what is arguably the real source of her anxiety. Her mom is passed out drunk on the couch. She tells her mom about her day but her mom won’t really engage and won’t eat the food Ellie brought them for dinner.

Ellie goes into her room to work on her homework, but hears her mom throwing up in the other room. She eyes her compass (the math tool), and in a moment of impulse, cuts herself.

The next day, Ms. Sauvé pulls Ellie and Paige to tell them that Ellie got the job. She’s thrilled, and heads to her first work session with an abundance of energy. Caitlyn is excited about her too and gives her a story to research. She wants Ellie to investigate teen mental health hotlines and whether they’re effective.

We go into a weird montage with lots of split-screens and moving frames where Ellie is researching the story, her mom is drinking, and Ellie is self-harming. Presumably, a lot of time passes. Ellie throws everything into the story, and uses cutting to feel relief. It gets a little awkward when the hotline worker mentions cutting as something they help teens with. 

But Ellie is getting a little reckless. She shows up late to school and the secretary gives her grief. She can’t keep being late because of her co-op job. That could lead to her losing the job entirely. Ellie is panicked. The job is the only thing that matters to her right now. She goes to the bathroom and self-harms.

And then Paige walks in. Paige notices the compass, and sees that Ellie is bleeding, but Ellie denies it and rushes out. Paige corners Ellie outside. Her tone is a little angry. She can’t believe Ellie is doing that, but it’s clear that Paige’s anger comes from fear. She’s scared for Ellie, even if they aren’t great friends. But Ellie refuses to discuss it. 

That afternoon, Ellie is heading out of school when she walks by Paige sitting outside of Ms. Sauvé’s office. Ellie hears the counselor mention that Paige is there to discuss a friend and flips out. She accuses Paige of trying to sabotage the co-op job so that Paige can take it. Paige says that’s not true. She just doesn’t know how to help.

Ellie insists there’s no problem, and Paige challenges her. Show me your arm, and I’ll let it go. Ellie eventually relents. Her arm is covered in cuts and scars. She breaks down. She takes over the appointment with Sauvé. She doesn’t say anything, but Ms. Sauvé says that’s okay. They can sit in silence for as long as they need to. What’s important is that Ellie is turning to her for help, not to self-harm. 

Terri gets the B story. Thank god, she needs it. A secret admirer has been leaving flowers on her locker. She hopes it’s a quiet, nerdy guy named Rick. Hazel encourages her to just ask Rick out, but Terri is too nervous. Hazel gets Manny to back her up. Manny, mostly reminding us that she’s still pining for Craig, says that if she liked someone, and he was single, nothing would stand in her way. 

But then Toby walks up and he’s being so weird. He keeps making vague comments about how Terri knows what’s going on. Terri begins to worry he’s the secret admirer, which Ashley teases her about. 

She finally confronts Toby. If he’s the admirer, she’s not interested! But Toby explains that he is not the admirer. He’s been testing Terri’s ESP as part of a project to prove psychic powers aren’t real. Terri hides out, for hours apparently, to catch her admirer. It is Rick. They have the same feelings and now they can be together. How cute, right? Wrong! He’s going to abuse her and then shoot Drake! But, we’ll get there.

I am extremely nosy. It’s not a character strength. Some of it works for me. I’m very interested in people, and I pay a lot of attention. These things have only made me a stronger writer. In fact, I would argue that a deep curiosity about people is required to be a good writer. But there is a line between curiosity and getting in people’s business and, oh boy, do I cross it. 

I just like knowing what’s going on! Sue me! And I do feel compassion about people. I have no desire to hear of something terrible happening in someone’s life so I can gloat, feel superior, or experience schadenfreude. If anything, I let myself be too impacted by other people’s struggles. I want to help. 

As I was watching this episode, I was struck by how hard it is to watch someone go through something really big. Obviously, this is true when an empathetic person watches fiction. I can do nothing for Ellie, and her struggles are intense and concerning. This is not an easy episode to get through. 

But I found myself thinking of my own life too. I thought of Paige, stepping in to get a friend of a friend, someone she doesn’t even get along with, the help she needed. I was surprised that my first reaction was that that would never work in real life. 

It’s very hard to help people. We are all conditioned by our capitalist hellscape to see seeking help as an emotional weakness. It’s difficult enough to accept solutions offered by people we open up to about our problems. It’s way way worse to hear solutions about things we haven’t brought up. 

We get defensive, of course we do. Offered solutions for an offered problem feel like someone telling us we haven’t been trying hard enough or thinking straight. Offered solutions for an observed problem feel like a personal attack. No one likes feeling like someone else can see our weakness. 

Some of this is fair. Often people can bring forward solutions that we’ve already considered. Often we share struggles because we want to be seen, not solved. Other times, it’s all pride. This manifests particularly when someone doesn’t just offer a solution, but actively provides it. Accepting that help or charity can be extremely difficult. 

I realized watching this episode that I never would have done what Paige did. I would have noticed. I would have been scared. But, at most, I would have talked to Ashley. I never would have confronted Ellie directly. I never would have exposed her to a third party that wasn’t a friend. But I also think that Paige made the absolute correct choice. It’s curious.

I don’t know what to do with that push and pull. I don’t think there’s a clean answer on when it’s time to step in and help and when it’s time to mind your own business. I don’t think it’s as straightforward as people act like it is that you should offer only an ear to a friend that shares a problem with you, not offer solutions. I don’t know how you distinguish between over-stepping with selfless help. I don’t know when I’m being nosy and when I’m being compassionate. 

In the episode, these are teenagers. Involving an adult makes sense. In the episode, Ellie is in physical danger. That makes the situation cleaner. It’s a tv show!

When I was a kid, my brother was depressed. He was picked on at school. It got really dark. I never stepped in. I never went to anyone and told them I was worried. I guess I really regret that. But I didn’t know what to tell people that they didn’t already know. At least that’s what I thought. 

I believe that we must live in community to truly survive. I believe that we need each other more than we allow ourselves to. I want to start by being better at accepting the help that’s offered to me. I want to remember the difference between offering an idea, offering a solution, and solving the problem myself. I want to pick the right move for the right moment. 

I want to take the pressure off myself. It’s not my job to fix everyone else’s problem. That’s just me wanting to be in it. Like I said, I’m extremely nosey.