Screens: MTV
Let's start with a confession: I went into last night's season finale of Awkward. thinking it might be the last hour the show and I spent with one another. As you may recall, when I wrote about the show's summer finale back in June, I was frustrated and annoyed by what felt like somewhat unearned drama rendering precarious the relationship between Jenna and Matty, in light of her growing interest in the interloper Collin. And when the show returned this fall, all my shipper's fears proved true: Jenna cheated on Matty with Collin, and in classic Jenna style got caught making out with Collin in front of all the guests at her surprise birthday party (Matty obviously included). Was any selfish TV girl ever less deserving of a saintly TV boy than Jenna was of Matty? I mean, I have to go back to Rory Gilmore making time with stupid Jess when Dean was so besotted with her that he LITERALLY MADE HER A CAR.
The season only got more frustrating from there, as its primary story turned into showing us how Jenna's choosing Collin over Matty — a decision she seemed to regret instantly but had to stick to because her infidelity was exposed — led her to a downward spiral into the high-school version of self-destruction. Breaking up with Matty caused the predictable collateral damage to her friendships — particularly with Tamara, Jenna's best friend who's (still) dating Matty's best friend, Jake — which only caused Jenna to commit to Collin with increased fervor and defiance. Given Jenna's shame-induced stubbornness, her clinging to Collin as her only ally (even her mother takes Matty's side, as who wouldn't) could have carried them into early marriage if not for the fact that Collin was fairly quickly revealed to be a determined drug user who tries to edge Jenna into polyamory with him and his ex-girlfriend. There's betting on the wrong horse, and then there's this.
So then — after a high point of a double episode in which Val makes an afterschool special based on Jenna's current crisis, starring Sadie as fake-Jenna, hilariously mugging like a motherfucker as she listens to her own internal monologue — the season turns into the story of Jenna trying to right all her wrongs. It's relatively easy for her to make it up with Tamara and Ming, who were always more concerned than mad, but the real shock is how willing Matty is to forgive her. I mean, when Jenna has to leave the party where Collin's true (gross) nature is revealed and has no one to come pick her up because she's burned all her other relationships, Matty responds to her cry for help and gets her. I hope the actual high school girls who make up the show's target audience don't get the impression that this is a response they should expect from any teenaged ex-boyfriends they screw over — or adult ones, for that matter. But what sells the moment is not just that Matty's being the bigger person makes Jenna feel all the shittier; it's that this reaction from Matty is completely in keeping with what we've seen from him all along. Of course he's still hurt, but he realizes that she wouldn't have called him if she weren't in a pretty seriously fucked-up situation, and spitefully punishing her wouldn't have made him feel any better.
This is very evolved behaviour, which is exactly why Jenna's treating him so badly through the whole first half of the season was so infuriating to me, because how goddamn dare she. But while I still think the whole Collin storyline was mostly just because the show's producers had wrung as much show as they could out of Matty And Jenna, Happy At Last, I will say that last night's finale got me back and made me accept that Jenna's dalliance with Collin was not as unearned as I had originally thought. First, her friendship with the new Jenna — freshman Bailey, victim of a false report about her sluttiness — reminded Jenna of where she came from, having gotten on the Palos Hills map due to a false report about her own failed suicide attempt. Then, her crushing disappointment at being so mistaken about Matty's intention to ask her to prom helped her be the bigger person for once, and to be happy for Matty and Bailey, two nice people who deserve each other. And her revisiting the (still truly horrible) letter Lacey wrote her, catalyzing the events of Season 1, showed Jenna how far she had actually come as a person. She may have only pursued Collin because being with Matty wasn't enough to make her think she was actually worthy of attention from him or any other guy...but at least she finally realizes it and has the balls to admit it to Matty.
So the question Season 4 will have to answer is whether Matty is so mature that he'll want to give Jenna another chance, or so mature that he'll allow himself to be happy with another pretty great girl who still has yet to screw him over. Are Jenna and Matty Awkward.'s One True Pairing, or will the series dare to run with Jenna's season-ending declaration of purpose to be the kind of girl who doesn't need a guy to validate her? And, most importantly, will the show's makeup department finally learn to cool it with the orange foundation on EVERYONE and let the characters' faces be the same colour as their necks?
Because it's a problem. The show will be back in 2014, so here's hoping all that will be sorted out by then.