Thanx to Elspeth

"The gang are back at College after the summer break. Their hedonism knows no bounds as they live life to the ethos of no consequences, no tomorrow and you can all live forever.


Their care-free bubble abruptly bursts when a near-stranger dies so needlessly, sending a shockwave through the group. The tragedy leaves Thomas questioning everything - his faith, his family and even his choice of friends. Effy returns, but no longer with her queen-bee status. Her best friend, Pandora, is as adorable and kooky as ever. Twins Katie and Emily are visibly different - after leaving her sister’s shadow Emily is head over heels in love, but while she’s finding out what life is really like, Katie is left behind in a family meltdown. Naomi seems to have more to hide this series; while JJ finally realises what love is. Meanwhile Cook is trying to simultaneously exorcise his demons and not reveal his weaknesses, and Freddie finds out that love can lead you to the edge.


Series 4 extra features:
- Bonus Skins stories
- Animated feature
- Behind the scenes videos
- Commentaries with the writers and directors"

"Great LezBritian" is a fortnightly stroll through the very best of British lesbo-centric entertainment and culture. Plus there will be some jolly good interviews with the top ladies who are waving the flag for gay UK.

No other lesbian TV relationship has ever set the internet on fire quite like Emily Fitch (Kathryn Prescott) and Naomi Campbell (Lily Loveless) in Skins.

In series ,3 we witnessed these star-crossed lovers navigate their relationship through choppy waters and then in blazing triumph set sail into what we hoped would be everlasting love and possibly shared custody of two cats. The beginning of series 4 gave us a glimpse of this happily-ever-after with an opening sequence of pants, presents and love biscuits, but alas the honeymoon was short lived and Bristol’s very own Juliet and Juliet entered the realm of dyke drama very quickly.

Last week we headed to a Mediterranean style cafe in Shoreditch, London to meet with Ed Hime, the Skins writer behind Emily’s episode in series 4. Once we had settled amidst a red and white checked tablecloth, amaretto biscuits and table football, Ed told us that he sometimes writes there and we wonder if anything around us inspired Naomily. Over two cappuccinos he tells us about the pressure of writing for the most popular couple in Skins, goggles, Heather Hogan and series 5.

AfterEllen.com: You started writing for Skins on series 4. How did you get involved, were you recruited?
Ed Hime: The production team is always trying to bring in new writers and I came in just as series 3 was airing, just as Naomily was taking off! I worked really hard to get the gig and was a massive fan of Skins before – I love the show.

AE: Why did you love it?
EH: I think it’s a personal show about really private stories and they take risks that no other TV show does. It doesn’t always work, so when it’s bad it really sticks out, but when it’s good it blows anything else out the water, in my opinion.

AE: How many writers are involved?
EH: There are loads; you have the core group of writers who write the episode, the script editors and also Jamie [Brittain] and Bryan [Elsley] who created the show. Then we try and bring in almost exclusively teenagers so what we’re doing isn’t bulls--t and there are always fresh eyes. Loads of people have been involved – comedians, writers from different mediums, younger kids.


AE: Did anyone come in specifically to give perspective to the Naomily storyline?
EH: I don’t think so, it really had the attention of everyone because we knew it was going to be a big story and we consciously wanted to place it in the middle of series 4. I didn’t feel I needed to do too much research because I’ve had my heart ripped out so that was the perspective I was coming at it from.

AE: Were you given Emily’s episode to write or did you decide you wanted to write for her?
EH: There were a few characters up for grabs and I actually gravitated towards Naomi. I wanted to write for her because I related to her most out of all of the Skins characters. I think I naturally understood where she was, she’s spiky and wants to be an outsider but desperate to be accepted at the same time, which was easy for me to understand.


AE: But you ended up writing for Emily.
EH: I knew that Emily and Naomi were going to be together and the more I researched it and got into it I realised that Emily was the more interesting character. She was struggling to free herself from her sister and the second she shakes Katie off, she goes straight into a relationship with Naomi. The hugeness of Emily’s love makes her unique in Skins world and those kinds of people are scary to be in relationships with, and I think that is especially true for someone like Naomi.

So they were in a difficult situation because they had just found love but in many ways they were quite incompatible. Naomi has to have her independence and Emily is about all-consuming love and that dynamic was fascinating to me.

AE: Did you feel extra responsibility to portray Naomily positively and fairly because there are so few representations of lesbian couples on TV and they meant so much to their fans?
EH: I didn’t really think about them as lesbians for quite a while but then when Naomily started kicking off, the people on the show realised that they had a total phenomenon on their hands.

I felt that my only real duty was to explore them as people and tell an emotionally honest story about them and not to think about what it was saying in a wider cultural context. I think you comment on it by not commenting on it, by just treating them like everyone else in the show and treating their story as equally valid.

AE: Which is quite a lot of pressure for you as a writer?
EH: Yes, I was pretty terrified and really nervous. The spine of series 3 was Effy, Freddy and Cook but the characters that really landed with people were Naomi and Emily, and the degree of the admiration for them was certainly a welcome shock.


AE: We spoke to Lily and Kat just before series 4 kicked off and they thought that in series 3 they were going to be a side story and the subsequent attention they had was quite surprising to them. Was it a surprise to everyone?
EH: I think quite a few people knew that something big was going to happen. In retrospect it’s easy to think that they were going to be big, but they were so pure and so innocent compared to the Effy, Freddy and Cook storyline, which I do love but it was so nihilist and grinding. The motivations of those characters were a little obscure, but with Emily and Naomi, you knew that they were supposed to be together and Emily really recognized something in Naomi that no one else did.

AE: What do you think that was?
EH: That she was desperate to be loved and desperate to be needed but was terrified to ask for that. I think she fancied her and spent ages staring at her until she eventually figured her out.

AE: Was it their innocence and vulnerability in season 3 that made you want to take them on a much darker route in series 4?
EH: There is a Skins tradition to show what is awesome about the characters in the first series and then in the second series to really test them. I mean, those two feelings are flip sides of the same coin and are totally necessary because what you are exploring are Naomi’s fears and that goes to the core of her character. I know that people were so furious that they only had half an episode of actually being happy together and I sympathize with that, but it is a drama and I couldn’t just write Naomi and Emily sat in the park having a lovely time.

AE: I think a fair few people would have loved that though. [Both laugh.]
EH: I know but things are never easy in the world of Skins.


AE: You said people were furious at them only having half an episode of happiness in series 4, how did you gauge that reaction?
EH: There is a real interface between Skins and the fans online, but I have to say the fans on AfterEllen were the most positive in the immediate aftermath of Emily and Naomi splitting up, and Heather Hogan’s recaps were brilliant. You dream of someone taking the time to digest an emotional response and not going through an episode with some knee-jerk reaction. I read them religiously because she had a mighty understanding of story-telling and I’d like to say that everything she said was planned, but she saw some stuff that we were lucky to have attributed to us.

AE: Do you think it was out of character for Naomi to cheat on Emily like many of the fans did?
EH: I saw it as a form of self-defense for Naomi to sabotage her happiness on that level. I think she could see how far she could fall if it all f--ked up, so it was a preemptive strike from her. I think it is quite easy for many people to relate to this but it may be difficult for others to understand her motivations. For me it was totally within character for Naomi to have done this and in retrospect after you have seen episode 8, I think you get what was going on.

AE: So you felt that the storyline had to arc out until the end of the season? The issues couldn’t be resolved in Emily’s episode?
EH: That episode was about Emily realizing that the worst possible thing that could happen to her has happened and not wanting to realise it. We didn’t think that episode should be about Naomi explaining herself.

AE: I suppose if you were trying to just keep everyone happy, it would have been difficult for you to write the story in the context of a drama series?
EH: I always felt in my head that it would be okay with Emily and Naomi before I knew how it ended. I never doubted that it was true love. I knew they would find a way, but they would just have to go through hell to get there.

AE: And that in itself is a more powerful story because if you go through hell and come out the other side of it, then it’s a deeper love?
EH: Yes, it is then enduring love. I mean this series was basically Emily and Naomi beating the s--t out of each other nearly the whole time. They were bloody and bruised but saying "I still love you." It’s beautiful to know that as a couple you have been tested in that way and come through it.



AE: In the goggles scene when Naomi cries, is it because she loves Emily so much or that she is guilty?
EH: It is a bit of both I think. She is obviously guilty but it’s strange at that point because you don’t know why. I love that bit when she gives her the goggles.

AE: Emily wearing the goggles with Naomi on the bike has become a very iconic Skins image – that must make you feel proud?
EH: Yes, it does and once I got it in my head I thought it would look f--king great. I loved the scene with them on the bikes in series 3 so I wanted to say in one image that they have just had the best summer of their lives and saying they got a bike together takes it up a level.

AE: Did you contribute much to the rest of Emily and Naomi’s story, beyond Emily’s episode?
EH: My episode was done quite early and I didn’t actually know how the series was going to play out. We all talked about it and a few ideas were floated around but I was unsure about how it would end as the storylines were constantly evolving and shifting.


AE: Did you have anything to do with Naomi’s speech at the end?
EH: I didn’t write it but I loved it. It goes back to pre-Skins to their origins years before we ever met them. For the whole series everyone is waiting for Naomi to step up and be brave. I watched that speech as a punter like everyone else and thought it was a beautiful moment.

AE: What was your proudest moment as a writer on Skins?
EH: I love them on the scooter and I loved the rooftop scene, they made that kind of magical.

AE: Did you have to work closely with Lily and Kat?
EH: I’ve only met them a couple of times. The scripts are finished and then handed to them - it’s a totally separate process. I visited the set a few times but you are basically a tourist, everyone is so busy.

AE: Even though it’s separate did Lily and Kat inspire you as actresses?
EH: Absolutely, Kathryn Prescott was really good in series 3 at giving Naomi longing looks; she has these beautiful eyes that just take everything in. So in her episode when she’s investigating what’s going on with Naomi and Sophia, I had her expressive eyes in mind for these scenes. Lily has the old school movie star thing about her. She’s mysterious and alluring and she is quite difficult to read, but really easy to watch and so good at portraying really little things. They are just such well drawn characters that it’s pretty easy to have someone go: "Here are your characters do what you want with them."

AE: When you stopped writing for them, did it feel that two old friends had left you?
EH: The process of my words coming off the page and onto the TV show gives you a real feeling of alienation as it’s never exactly how you imagined it and I did drive my flatmate insane by talking about them all the time. He would just indulge me as if I was talking about my imaginary friends. I still say "Naomily" about 50 times a day.

AE: Have you seen any of the fan fiction that’s been written about them?
Yes, it’s beautiful that they are transcending the show and in a way they can become whatever people want them to be - though I was pretty amazed at the amount of filth people have written!

AE: What would you envisage Naomily doing now?
EH: I love the idea of them travelling together. They’re both so smart so I could imagine them being at uni and being one of those awesome couples that are always together. I imagine them to be together but who knows? It’s best to leave it to the fans and their fiction.

AE: What about Freddie being killed off? It really didn’t feel like it was necessary for the story.
EH: Well Skins has a grand tradition of subverting its fans expectations and I totally sympathise with everyone that was shocked and saddened by it and I miss Freddie too!

AE: Do you think that series 4 could have done with a few more episodes because it did seem quite rushed with a lot of ends tied up too quickly?
EH: It would have been lovely to have written some more but we had 8 episodes from the network. No one wanted to write just 8, especially as we had 9 characters. I think it was ended well but who knows what will happen with the movie...


AE: What about the Skins Movie?
EH: It’s going to be awesome and Jack Thorne is writing it – but that’s literally all I know, I’m not involved with it.

AE: You mentioned that you were working on series 5 today - what stage are you at with this?
EH: We have a whole bunch of characters and we are just figuring out on how we want them to fit together and what stories we want to tell about them.

AE: Are you excited about it?
EH: Yes, very – we are in cool position now, Skins is kind of established now and this lets us take chances and tell some pretty untold stories. We’ve been working on it for a few months now and it’s getting very exciting. It will air at some point next year.

AE: Are there going to be any gay characters in this series?
EH: I can’t talk about that at all, but we are going in some very interesting and surprising directions – but I’m sorry that’s all I can say.

AE: Have you chosen the cast?
EH: We are casting now but you have to be 16 or 17 years old and they are being pretty militant about it. Though you can always tell if there is someone in their 30s trying to get in.

AE: Would you like to say anything to the AfterEllen.com readers?
EH: Thank you! It was a really terrifying privilege that meant so much to so many people and I had a total desire to please them but also to take the characters somewhere they wouldn’t have thought they would go. It was a very tricky balancing act.

"Say goodbye to the gang, as they say goodbye to each other"

"Lily Loveless has admitted that she is proud of her work on Skins.
The 19-year-old actress, who portrays lesbian teen Naomi Campbell, said that she has found the current series more challenging than its predecessor.
"Filming Skins was made all the more exciting and enjoyable experience because of the other members of the cast - I get on with all of them so well," she said.
"We're like a family of brothers and sisters, and it feels like I've known them a lot longer than the two years it has been."
She added: "Series 4 was a lot of hard work, and more intense than the first due to the more serious storylines. But, as I'm watching the episodes back each week, I think the work has paid off and the series is fantastic.
"I'll miss the fact that there was always someone to keep you company on or off set, and the fact that it was like going to work with your best mates."
Loveless also revealed that her future plans include looking for acting roles in television and theatre."

"Kathryn Prescott has revealed her upset at finishing work on Skins.
The 18-year-old actress has played Emily Fitch on the teen drama since the series three premiere, but will bow out at the end of the current fourth series along with the rest of the cast.
"It was so sad finishing filming for Skins because it's been so much a part of my life for the last two years," she said.
"It was really cool filming for two years with everyone and I'm really going to miss all of the cast and crew as they were so much fun to work with. But it is nice to finally have a bit of a breather and I'm sure I'll see some of them again soon!"
She added: "Although it was really stressful at times, I will miss working on the show as it was doing something I loved doing, and I can't wait to start working again."
Prescott also said that she plans to start a university course in September and will try to juggle studying and acting."

"Jack O'Connell has described the series four finale of Skins as "the end of the road".
The 19-year-old actor, who has played Cook for the past two series, also revealed that there is a "helpless vibe" to the episode.
"Episode 8 for me was about bringing everyone together, finally, amid all the bullsh*t this year's brought for each of them," he said. "It's cool to see that they're all able to come together and have a laugh, like when we first saw them together in episode 2 of series 3 and onwards. Everybody bar one, that is.
"Every character has grown in their own right, and by the end of the episode you will see how each of them have their place within the group. It may be different to how we first saw them, and with Freddie missing, there's definitely a helpless vibe felt by the group."
He added: "But what's clear is that they are a unity, and will stick together no matter what. Hopefully the audience will feel this too, making each laugh more treasurable. It's the end of the road, a proper finale."

"The series four finale of Skins will feature all of the current cast bar Luke Pasqualino, a show insider has revealed.

Thursday's episode will not have a character focus like previous instalments and will instead conclude each teen's story.

The finale takes place at Naomi's house and is set over two days. Throughout the episode, a series of showdowns will ensue between the characters.

Klariza Clayton will guest star alongside the regular cast as Freddie's sister Karen."