1x16 Kim Kelly is My Friend

[7.6/10] (Note, this one was listed as episode 4 on my copy, but is episode 16 on TVDb, so who knows!)

One of the interesting things about Kim is that even before you get a glimpse of her home life here, you can tell something’s not right at her house. It’s a cliché to assume that bullies must have problems going on at home, but something about the way Kim reacts to things, how defensive and stealthily vulnerable she is, suggests she’s used to feeling vulnerable and used to being defensive.

That makes for an interesting theme to the episode -- how emotional states are transferred from person-to-person, especially from parent-to-child. You see all the ways that Kim has internalized parts of her home life, where her mother is violent, accusatory, and degrading to her daughter, in a way that trickles down to how Kim treats others. There’s hints that she learned to use her sexuality as a bargaining chip from her mom, that her Stepdad may abuse her, and that poverty and drugs have taken their toll on the Kellys.

It’s harrowing really. Again, one of the great strengths of Freaks and Geeks is the way it has that Wonder Years-esque sepia-toned rustle of T.V. perfection, and yet it’s so achingly real. The awkwardness of being Lindsay in that situation, the outsider in an unfamiliar family having to watch this tumult and not knowing what to do, or the equal and opposite awkwardness of bringing a friend home who comes from a different walk of life and hoping your parents will approve, is all realized in such a true-to-life fashion.

This is an episode that takes things to extremes, with high-volume depictions of family arguments, lovers’ quarrels, and make-ups that are physical in more ways than one, but it never ceases to feel painfully accurate to the messiness of teenage life, particularly when you have a chip on your shoulder for feeling like you’re from the wrong side of the tracks.

That’s the real trick of this one. It makes Kim, the would-be antagonist to Lindsay, into a figure of pity who’s worthy of sympathy. You realize not only that her occasional harshness with Lindsay is a product of learned behaviors at home, but also come from a place of envy. Lindsay is a “good girl” who gets good grade and is, compared to Kim, affluent, with loving parents and home-cooked meals and who is and has all the things Kim doesn’t. Suddenly, Kim’s bad attitude, her sense of having to stave off a rival, makes much more sense, because it comes from a place of sadness, frustration, and lacking the things that Lindsay takes for granted.

Oh yeah, and Sam gets into a confrontation with Rashida Jones! I gotta admit, it’s odd seeing her as Karen (not the Karen from The Office) the rebellious teenager here, but she fits into the show’s milieu well. Sam’s story is quietly about the same thing Kim’s is, how the criticisms and attitude you receive get turned on others. When Karen calls him a geek and gets in his face, Sam can’t really take it out on her, so he takes it out on his friends, getting into fights and feeling insecure, just as Kim can’t really take out her frustrations on her parents, so she takes them out on Lindsay.
It’s good writing, centered on well-observed truths about people’s emotional states and their outlets. Seeing Sam’s reaction to Kim, the way he sees her as the cause of his problems, without seeing the people who are the cause of hers, is a nice trick of perspective, showing how we only see the tip of the iceberg.

The other side of the coin is that this sort of trickle down emotional state works for good and not just for ill. Just as Kim internalized the lessons of her parents, Lindsay interalized the lessons of hers. However much Mr. and Mrs. Weir may bristle at Kim’s uncouthness, they’re ultimately welcoming and supportive of Kim despite their reservations about her, which is where Lindsay lands too. She’s accommodating and comforting to the person she’s shocked to learn considers her an only friend. The bad stuff trickles down, but so does the stuff that teaches you to be a good person even to the folks who haven’t been great to you.

Freaks and Geeks is an optimistic show, and it’s hard to see that optimism in an episode filled with physical violence and inherited shame, but it comes from Lindsay, who proves that what you take from the people who raise you can make you a source of support for the folks who aren’t nearly so lucky as to have the things you took for granted.