#odeto-psyche

odetopsyche: The first time I was here was this time last year actually and I had some serious Skam moments, it was beautiful. But despite it being -3c here, it's beautiful as shown in the show.

Ghostcat: Did you bump into any SKAM actors? Because that is my nightmare.

odetopsyche: I did.

Ghostcat: Who? Where? I forgot, but please answer for the more awake who don't know this.

odetopsyche: At a bar where I knew the actors would be. It was actually really chill, they were all there for the con and I just wanted to see what was happening, so I went. I got to meet Henrik briefly, with a photo, a wave, and then that was that. I also met some of the Skam Italia cast. I never have done anything like that before, and haven't since, mostly because I'm not super into actor culture and don't watch tv. "Actor culture." "Fan culture." You know what I mean.

Ghostcat: I feel you.

odetopsyche: The last show that I watched that I truly fell in love with was Skam in late 2017. Over Christmas time two years ago, very late to the game, but because I was never in that loop, and found it by accident.

Ghostcat: And here we are, with you getting suckered into having a conversation about it with some random person online… By accident?

odetopsyche: I found Skam totally by accident. No one recommended it, I'd never seen it online. In 2017 I was living in London and studying my masters, so I never had time for any online findings of new shows, fandoms, the like on tumblr or beyond. When I finished that degree I was on tumblr for the first time in months and months, and was randomly on the search page and saw a random post - seriously - and read it and then looked it up. That make-out gif later, I found it on Dailymotion and watched season 3 in one night.

Ghostcat: What was the random post? (Unless it's spoilery―then give me the secret wink)

odetopsyche: No it's not. It was someone recommending LGBTQ shows and I just read the description and was curious. And I was just looking up all of them on the list, but that was the first one I picked. And that was that.

Ghostcat: Ah, so you saw season three first (not unusual post-season three really).

odetopsyche: Yes, I did. Then I rewatched it all from season 1 to 4, slower.

Ghostcat: Did you find it hard to follow without knowing the other characters? Or was it just go, go, go―immediately caught up in the momentum?

odetopsyche: Truth be told, until about episode 5, I wasn't really paying attention. I was doing other things and had it on, sort of following.

Ghostcat: Ha ha ha, okay. What caused the turn?

odetopsyche: Sorry, that's not true. It was episode 2. The window scene. Then I was like, oh.

Ghostcat: Right, right. You had the fanfic oh moment.

odetopsyche: Then episode 5 when he has his Kanye moment, then I really stopped everything―went from my oh shit the lighting the actors the stillness the silence―to now I have to write something about this.

Ghostcat: (nods, drinks tea)

odetopsyche:  So after that episode, I knew if I found a fandom for it, I would probably see what's in it. Explore a bit, write a bit, etc. Episode eight was...quite incredible.

Ghostcat: Yeah. Before we get fully into it. I want to go back a little and present a question from our previous talk back guest, @etal-late​, for you: how does the setting and the whole architecture and space of the hotel add to the scene?

odetopsyche: Okay.

Ghostcat: Which, I guess, technically, puts us right at the climax of the episode but like that hotel scene we'll move around in time a bit.

odetopsyche: Excellent. Well, for me, the hotel scene is from where Isak steps off the curb outside of KB, when Gambino begins to play, to the end of the scene when he leaves the hotel in the dark. That entire sequence is blue. It's nearing real winter and the sky is a toneless gray, the buildings go from the west side's white and neutral facades to steel, glass, and taller business buildings and hotels. It's also just near the central station, so you really feel like you're not a kid anymore but in the 'city' part, alone and adult. Which I feel matches exactly the experience Isak is going through, checking into a hotel  feels sort of  like this romantic, exciting 'quasi' adult experience he's having.

Ghostcat: Yes.

odetopsyche: Inside the hotel, I feel like it also repeats this theme of feeling adult. It's not the Kollektiv, it's not Even's room with all his posters. It's a nameless, pale, anonymous backdrop. But I also am implying that 'feeling adult' also is meant to feel like you're 'out of your depth' ~~ a frequent adult feeling, might I add.

Ghostcat: Lol. That is the entirety of what being an adult is for me.

odetopsyche: Yes.

Ghostcat: A mad scrambling improv of "having it together" (spoiler: you never have it totally together). It's a rite of passage for all teenagers that...I want to say transgression but that's not the right word. That first thing you do that feels like something so far outside of your scope but you're unafraid (mostly) because you're doing it with another.

odetopsyche: It's certain a transfer. And an interference, I think, as well lol, to your sense of what the world appears to you to be.

Ghostcat: I remember cutting school once, leaving at the usual time, but taking a bus into Manhattan and meeting my boyfriend and spending the whole day together. It felt like a different world. It was a different world.

odetopsyche: Yes and you're in this 'bubble' together that is as intoxicating as doing drugs out in public in the middle of the day.

Ghostcat: Always with that nagging sense of can I get away with this?

odetopsyche: Same chemicals released in your brain. So I definitely understand why Isak and Even could have this experience and go along with it and get caught up.

Ghostcat: And go up. Literally.

odetopsyche: That's the wave, the whirlwind.

Ghostcat: The ride up to the suite in that elevator, leaving the city behind and being in the clouds a bit.

odetopsyche: This is Andem's goodness here.

Ghostcat: Yeah, she knows what she's doing.

odetopsyche: It's such a normal elevator in reality and yet she makes it really feel like that swooping feeling up in your gut.

Ghostcat: It's like she took the word "high" and started to think about all the ways she could indicate it without slapping us in the face.

odetopsyche: Also, one of my top Isak/Tarjei acting quirks is the little 'eyebrow raise' before they kiss, while the Weeknd is playing.

Ghostcat: I love that. It's such a challenging look―flirtatious and sweet and unafraid.

odetopsyche: These are the types of things that, once I clued in to what I was watching, absolutely thrilled me. And has since forever set Skam apart, is that subtlety.

Ghostcat: One of our newbies thought Isak might have some hesitation here and I bit my tongue because I wanted to shout LOOK AT HIS FACE, THAT EYEBROW, HE'S ALL IN. The subtlety is sublime. It makes one a part of the experience because you come to the associations naturally.

odetopsyche: It is, we're all flies on the wall here, rather than an audience. It's a great feeling.

Ghostcat: Thrilling but we'll come back to the hotel in a bit. Do you remember how you felt at the start of this episode? Were you worried going into this one?

odetopsyche: Quite excited, since the reunion was the episode before.

Ghostcat: I know some audience members were concerned that Isak never had a talk with Even. He just immediately leapt.

odetopsyche: I did have a thought like this, but not at this moment. For me, it made perfect sense that he would do this. He is a teenager who is in the throes of his first reciprocated crush and is kind of having puppy love levels of feels, which are Total Serious Ness when you are 17.

Ghostcat: They might as well be full-on love.

odetopsyche: Yes. Though I did feel his guard was still up when he got up. And he did tell Even the truth about how much the Sonja thing upset him, even if he didn't use the exact words.

Ghostcat: With time you come to understand love differently but that first full-on flush is a wild overthrow.

odetopsyche: Indeed.

Ghostcat: I was quite proud of Isak.

odetopsyche: Me too. I felt really happy for him, relieved, and hopeful.

Ghostcat: Which sounds like a ridiculous thing to say, but I felt such a sense of kinship with this kid.

odetopsyche: His comment 'only you can feel what you feel' was intensely powerful, that same kind of power that paralleled his negative comment about mental health in the locker those previous episodes.

Ghostcat: Yes, so powerful. It really grabbed me and then the camera pans to Even and he is equally captured.

odetopsyche: It also exposed his vulnerability a great deal. Given he doesn't know about Even's mental health history really, for him to say this carried a lot of depth to follow. It was quite a profession, almost like an I love you without knowing that is what he was saying.

Ghostcat: Yes, definitely.

odetopsyche: Even felt this though, and it must have felt so good, so validating (also an intoxicating feeling), and so pure coming from Isak. Which I think touches on this theme we see.

Ghostcat: Even's explanations about Sonja confused the fuck out of me but I believed the ramble of it, if that makes sense?

odetopsyche:  Where Even sees Isak as 'pure' in the sense that he doesn't know Even, isn't hurt by him, and Even really tries to protect him from whatever he deems a threat, whether it's himself, or Sonja, etc.

Ghostcat: Especially himself. It felt like something difficult was going on, more than your usual “we're done because she's a b” sort of talk.

odetopsyche: So the rambling Even did also was a bit of red flag.

Ghostcat: Yes, but at the time, I didn't pick up on it. I thought it was just SKAM's hyper-realistic dialogue, ha ha ha.

odetopsyche: One because I am weird about how people explain their break ups. And his 'control' explanation, I didn't quite understand what he meant. I chalked it up to their relationship being so long.

Ghostcat: That rambling, I've-never-had-to-articulate-this-before type talk. I understood control as gaslighting of some sort which seemed weird given what Even has shown us so far.

odetopsyche: I do have to say, that as someone who has experienced a relationship ending akin to the end of Sonja/Even, I do really feel for her. I know that maybe is not the most common opinion but I felt that Sonja became the enemy in her own relationship which must have felt like shit. And I could understand, in that way we understand that people are complicated, that perhaps she did feel controlling to Even because she was aware he was leaving her―emotionally, physically, etc. So I thought maybe she was clingy, or manipulative. And I didn't understand why Even didn't seem sad it was over with her. Or perhaps it just didn't seem like that to Isak―seeing as this is his perspective, and he wouldn't have witnessed those moments.

Ghostcat: True.

odetopsyche: A six year relationship doesn't just end like that. Likely it had been over for a while, or never quite recovered from the last time they nearly broke, and so Isak was a catalyst, rather than a breaking point. Which is how I choose to view their ending.

Ghostcat: Though Isak's POV is an interesting thing. He's observant and mindful of other people, he has a lot of moments of "regret."

odetopsyche: Yeah he does. Which I really appreciated. Because it's human.

Ghostcat: Yes. His moments of understanding that he'd done wrong.

odetopsyche: He hesitated, because he knew obviously it was something he wanted to do so badly, badly enough that he would forget for moments that Even was with Sonja, but those would loop around.

Ghostcat: And going back to fix them.

odetopsyche: Yes.

Ghostcat: I love that about the character, his willingness to evolve.

odetopsyche: Yes, me too.

Ghostcat: Which you wouldn't expect―how open he is to change given how he starts the season.

odetopsyche: I know. It's quite impressive, in my opinion, how quickly he unravels some of these inner resistances and leaps. I guess being a teenager is like that though. Sometimes you arrive at these cliff sides and you jump with your eyes closed because what else is there to do but grow.

Ghostcat: (btw, I agree with you regarding Even and Sonja―but I suspect that I'll veer into spoiler territory there so I'll come back to this in a future talk back.)

odetopsyche: Totally understandable, I look forward to it :smile:

Ghostcat: What strikes me though, is that when you're a teenager you don't always know growth is happening. Things are happening.

odetopsyche: No, you can't know. We only see it in retrospect, like a holographic sign.

Ghostcat: Yeah, and Isak is introspective.

odetopsyche: But that is why Skam was great, because we as viewers simultaneously could see these moments whilst also being Isak and sharing his experiences.

Ghostcat: We spend a lot of time in SKAM hanging with our mains in silence. When they're in bed or zoning out or whatever. But Isak's alone moments always seem especially active to me. There's a real hum to his brain.

odetopsyche: That was one of my favorite things about Skam; the silence. It sets it apart from many other shows, and most of the remakes. It tells a huge story.

Ghostcat: Yes! The willingness to be quiet, let things take time. Real time.

odetopsyche: It makes the music more important, it gives the acting a lot more space, and we, the audience, are made to wait patiently with our mains and stew with them.

Ghostcat: It's the stewing, ha ha ha. You're really in it with them.

odetopsyche: All of the mains do this well, of course. Tarjei has a very masterful way of expressing the minutiae of his body language for us to see, and that was a delight.

Ghostcat: I can think of so many moments on the show that really stretched out and I actually thought wow, that's a bold use of time there.

odetopsyche: I appreciate especially―not just for it's meme content―the scene where he finishes Romeo + Juliet and lies on his back in silence. This was so relatable.

Ghostcat: That is a wonderful clip.

odetopsyche: It is.

Ghostcat: All he does is watch a movie―"ISAK sits in bed and silently watches Romeo + Juliet." If I read that in a script, I wouldn't think, oh, that's gonna be magic.

odetopsyche: Exactly. I like that it is bold, though, because I can see the style and effort in these purposeful moments and it leaves a specific taste in your mouth.

Ghostcat: I mentioned to you that we were going to touch a bit on the social media content for this week.

odetopsyche: Yes, I went through and re-read them all.

Ghostcat: I must confess that when I first saw this, I was not looking at the social media, but when I went back and read it on the rewatch, I was like damn, they really thought about the build in this episode.

odetopsyche: Indeed.

Ghostcat: There's very little Even in the social media extras and then this week, it explodes! Isak posts Even’s photo on his instagram.

odetopsyche: Honestly, the social media is brilliant here. I think Even's back all of a sudden and it's like a dam being broken. All of a sudden we're in the flood, which is the flood of Even all of a sudden becoming so available to Isak again.

Ghostcat: But even that photo is genius, in terms of character. Even playing a video game.

odetopsyche: Yes!

Ghostcat: Could be just a bro? But then he's wearing Isak’s shirt. (Not a bro?)

odetopsyche: But everyone who is meant to know, knows it's definitely not just a bro. Which is such a statement from Isak.

Ghostcat: Yeah, exactly, it's such a statement and then the building back and forth between Even and Isak, where you realize he pretty much stayed there all week. They don't just go from reunion to hotel.

odetopsyche: Also, the idea that Even's been there all day hanging out, playing video games, and then yes―continues to basically be there all week. Yeah, exactly. It's a build up of Even totally up in Isak's space, literally, mentally, emotionally, just amping it up and up and up. Even is a brilliant character and the way they write him is great because you do just feel everything being supercharged.

Ghostcat: And Eskild takes that photo of them and shares with the kollektiv (with Isak's consent I'm sure because Eskild is very careful with Isak that way) and Isak says don't share it, we're not official or anything. Which made me go, Boooooooy. Even is at your house EVERY DAY. What do you think is happening?

odetopsyche: Which I think matches his inner feelings. In a way we can see Isak's experience of the intensity as a reflection of Even's inner state. Yet, as we see in the group chat with the Kollektiv, there is still some hesitancy of making it  public.

Ghostcat: Yeah, and I thought it was Isak hesitating being out.

odetopsyche: I think it's that, and also, the drama at school about Emma-Even-Sonja-Isak etc.

Ghostcat: And yet... at the hotel, Even introduces him as his boyfriend and Isak posts an insta story right after, a photo of the two of them in their hotel room.

odetopsyche: I know that was so cute. Isak was 'numb with happiness' I CAN'T.

Ghostcat: So any hesitation disappears and really being with Even openly matters more than any other drama.

odetopsyche: You can see, though, those hints of babbling. At the first watch, I thought Even was just being goofy, giddy excited (which he is) because on re-watches I do see it as rambling now.

Ghostcat: He's totally rambling.

odetopsyche: Very friendly, but unusual, given how polite and quiet Isak is. Not the norm here, certainly

Ghostcat: My favorite little bit of acting in that reception scene: Isak's giddy little fist pump.

odetopsyche: Ha ha.

Ghostcat: Like, good job, me! I AM handsome. I did it!

odetopsyche: It's precious.

Ghostcat: It's so goofy and sweet and it's going up against the rambling and the teenager using a credit card to book a hotel suite which is expensive as fuck and what is happening??? There were too many things happening for me to fully sink into worry until of course, they're eating their mini-burgers and drinking their champagne and Even completely stops making sense.

odetopsyche: Yes. That was obviously difficult to watch for me, and also on re-watch. I think it's quite good of HH and his acting was pretty good, as well as the reactions of Isak's face, as he slowly lost confidence that Even was making sense. What was doubling intense were the cross cuts between this scene and them in bed.

Ghostcat: The last time we saw that effect was in season one with Eva and Jonas' break-up and it immediately gives you the sense of this is an important moment.

odetopsyche: Yeah, that was a great scene.

Ghostcat: That is being documented by our main as it's happening, stored and saved for later.

odetopsyche: I will never forget Tarjei's/Isak's head in the bed with half his face obscured and that single bright red cheek.

Ghostcat: Ha ha ha, about that shot.

odetopsyche: Yes. It's a moment.

Ghostcat: My co-mod and I have a joke about TSM only needing one eye to act. Julie Andem likes to frame half his face with a single emoting eye. It happens a lot and in that scene, along with that red, red cheek. It's especially vulnerable. He really does look like he's falling asleep, pure exhaustion and we, as viewers, want him to wake up because the sound design and the black-outs and Even are telling us to brace ourselves.

odetopsyche: Yes. It does. He also just looks like he's been running on pure energy and adrenaline for an entire week.

Ghostcat: He's up in that bathroom building an ODENSVIK bathroom cabinet. I didn't know whether to laugh, scream or run. What is he doing in there and why does it require so much banging???

odetopsyche: I didn't know―the cut shots were brilliant though, and finally you thought―as a viewer―something was about to be revealed. Also keeps us totally within Isak's pov.

Ghostcat: Did you guess? At the time, did you guess? Or had you been spoiled?

odetopsyche: Guess what was going to happen, or why he was acting like that? No, I did not. I really didn't understand as it was happening, I couldn't pause to think, only watch and wait with that same fascination when you're watching a crash about to happen.

Ghostcat: Okay, I know you have time constraints, so I will let you go. We always think it's going to be short and then I start rambling. Forgive me. Before you run, any final thoughts on this episode that we didn't get a chance to discuss?

odetopsyche: Haha, No don't apologise. There's so much to this episode, as a pivotal game-changer, which was equally shocking (and soon I learned, very Skam like) to have an episode like this so late in the season.

Ghostcat: Episode 8. Always a killer.

odetopsyche: I think this episode is obviously so crucial and intense because it both confirms all we wanted all season (and Isak wanted) and also totally brought us down to question everything again. A super high and super low. Of course, we're left with this gut wrenching feeling of him searching the city and panicking, and then the confrontation with Sonja, we really feel Isak's panic. And confusion.

Ghostcat: When she says Even's with the police and Isak gives that big long shaky exhale.

odetopsyche: And thus arrives the full circle of the 'out of the depth' Anonymous city/adulting cold architecture, blue tones of the city's steel and glass, the hotel, and now we're in his murky darkness where you are totally drowning, and you have no idea. Yeah, he's obviously relieved and feels really guilty. Possibly unbearably so.

Ghostcat: Like he saw but refused to see?

odetopsyche: And very out of his depth abruptly at once again. Drowning in it. You remember suddenly that he's a child again when he messages Eskild. (Woops, not sure if that's in this ep or beginning of ep 9...)

Ghostcat: Isak, who questions everyone's motivations seemingly at all times.

odetopsyche: Yes.

Ghostcat: We saw the text, it's okay. The group needed to know Isak got home safe.

odetopsyche: But it's hard to want to question Even's motives when that would mean questioning if he's worthy of something he wants so much. And so Isak doesn't.

Ghostcat: Well, Even's the man of his dreams.

odetopsyche: That's exactly right.

Ghostcat: This episode introduces us fully to Even really and brings up the question of what that means exactly: “The man of your dreams.” What does that even mean? How real is that? How much have you constructed?

odetopsyche: Even materalises so much for Isak, of his feelings, his desires, and that fact that others may desire him too. His real form, too, not his mask, but as a boy-to-be-man attracted to other guys. So how devastating it is to be questioned as real/not real.

Ghostcat: Yeah, he's everything to Isak.

odetopsyche: It really sucks.

Ghostcat: The episode begins (sort of) with that real/not real question. Even questions his own feelings, ones he’s never felt anything like before. “Only you can feel what you feel,” Isak answers. And it ends with Sonja's answer: not real, all those feelings were a "sick idea" and Isak's stricken face.

odetopsyche: What is beautiful though, in my opinion, is that―at least for me―I didn't leave the episode feeling like Even was malicious or shady. I just felt he had secrets, ones he understandably did not reveal. So it's heartbreaking without...breaking our hearts over characters we believe (and want to believe) are redeemable and kind. Which I do feel Even is, regardless of what he did or he did not tell Isak.

Ghostcat: Yeah, especially since it was always posited that, as Jonas said, he was “playing” Isak.

odetopsyche: And I do feel Isak is, regardless of the fact of what happened.

Ghostcat: Oh absolutely. Even wanted to be able to have Isak in his life despite thinking he's the worst thing for him, even if it was for one week, and Isak didn't look too closely. Even though, given his own experience with his mom, he had a growing sense of something being wrong.

odetopsyche: Yes. It would have been very devastating if it turned out Even was a character who did things along the lines of what Eskild was talking about, and that was the big reveal. But instead it's much more personal and traumatic of a reveal for Even, which exposes something about him that he cannot always control, and something he cannot walk away from. So I did really empathize with the MI line, not only because I have my own experiences in relation, but because it wasn't like he could explain everything just for the sake of Isak knowing. But rather there was a deep personal stake in this that he couldn't quite reveal, because it would be a vulnerability you can't return from; only move on from. Does that make sense?

Ghostcat: Makes total sense.

odetopsyche: Yeah.

Ghostcat: It's another starting point. Once that information’s out, you begin again in a world where that is a thing that defines you, something you always have to be aware of. Your partner knows and you know that they know. “We can’t go back,” part two.

odetopsyche: I like these self-invested survival skills of these young characters, they truly feel like teenagers to me. And they were, haha. So I really identified with why neither of them did anything but what they did.

Ghostcat: Yes, absolutely. so relatable. SKAM has plenty of drama but doesn't feel soapy. It has a rawness.

odetopsyche: No, it remains outside of a lot of cliches. Because it utilises the stress of awkwardness, silence, feeling left out, mopiness, rather than drama, constant confrontation, and intense expressions of love etc. So we feel tense despite it not being soapy. You're right, I do have to get going now

Ghostcat: Go go go. Thank you so much for coming by to chat with us! Enjoy your Oslo time. :smile:

odetopsyche: Thank you so much for having me on again, and making me break out of my shell and do this. I hope I answered all your questions. I have been really enjoying reading everything people say.

Ghostcat: We'd love to hear your take. Now go enjoy the freeze!

odetopsyche: Thanks! Ciao babe.

Ghostcat: Chao, as we say in The Motherland.

*