9 of the most CONTROVERSIAL moments from Skins series one

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by Jadie Troy-Pryde |
Published on

Can you believe it has been ten years since Skins first came on the telly?

Ah, we remember the days well.

Sitting in the Sixth Form common room, excitedly nattering away about the advert for a show that we knew nothing about, except that they were having what looked like the BEST party of all time to the sound of Beth Ditto wailing Standing In The Way Of Control.

The ad in itself is legendary.

Oh, the noughties.

As well as labelling every mental house party that followed IRL a 'Skins Party', we also learnt some very valuable life lessons.

But can you remember how harrowing some of it was? How fucked up? And how absolutely shocking and controversial?

Maybe you can. But here's a refresher just in case you need it.

Warning: will spark nostalgic feels that you may not be able to shake off for a good few hours.

When Chris' mum abandoned him

This was SO sad.

When party animal Chris came downstairs one morning after an awkward wee thanks to too much Viagra, he found a note from his mum saying she was leaving for 'a few days', and an envelope with a stash of money.

But she never comes back, because Skins was intent on making us cry at least once a week.

After blowing the money on a few wild parties, Chris realises she's gone for good when he finds her wardrobe empty, and he just sits in it.

Feels.

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When Cassie shoots Sid (and takes an overdose)

Cassie and Sid's road to lurve had MANY bumps along the way.

But who remembers how unnerving her confrontation with Sid was when she found out he'd been hanging out with Michelle?

She SHOOTS him. OK, it was with a plastic gun, but still. Dramz AF.

Cassie is distraught, and attempts suicide on her favourite park bench.

:(

See? Skins wasn't all just illegal warehouse raves and teens shagging.

When Effy spoke for the first time

Thanks to her starring role in the following seasons, it's easy to forget that when we first met Effy she was completely silent.

As in, she never said ANYTHING.

Because she was, like, so mysterious and badass even though she was only about ten, we all secretly wanted to be as cool as her.

But Effy finally cracks. She goes on a drug-fuelled rant about being born backwards, and she repeatedly calls her brother Tony a wanker for the way he has treated Michelle.

And by repeatedly, she says it four times, and it's all she says.

When Tony got with the posh girl in front of Michelle

So Tony was a massive cock in series one, and this was really fucked up.

He joined a choir and started getting it on with private school posh lass, Abigail.

During a performance of God Only Knows (lol), they snog on stage IN FRONT of his girlfriend, Michelle.

Awkward.

Michelle then storms into the dressing room demanding answers, only to find Tony groping Abigail's boobs while she sings Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Yeah, it's all a bit weird.

However, Tony tells Sid he has orchestrated the whole thing so that Sid can achieve his life-long dream of bumping uglies with Michelle.

Although we were unsure about whether something like this would ACTUALLY happen in real life, we then remembered that Spencer Matthews was a thing, so probably.

And then Michelle and Sid almost got together

After above dramz happened, Sid and Michelle met at a bar and started doing this semi-sexy sway dancing, which was obviously how we all imagined we looked at the local youth club before we got with our MSN crush.

Just as they pair are about to kiss, Tony swoops in and forces Sid to watch him stealing Michelle back.

BRUTAL.

But Sid eventually gets it on with Michelle in series 2, after which she proclaims, "You made me cum!" in probably the cringiest moment of the entire show. Ever.

And the moment we vowed to never watch telly with our parents ever again.

And then Tony gave Maxxie a blow job for no reason – again, in front of Michelle

We used to REALLY fancy Tony, but the more we remember this stuff, the clearer it becomes that he was an absolute knob.

So why did we all want him to be our bf?

Maybe because we were in awe of his transformation from geeky bowl-cut kid in About A Boy to actual smoking hot heartthrob?

Maybe because we were SO young and naïve that we thought guys being dicks made them bad boys?

Who knows.

But when Maxxie fell out with Anwar about his sexuality, he went to sleep in Tony's room.

Tony then proceeded to give Maxxie a blow job.

It wasn't even a bi-curious moment, or Tony experimenting. He was literally just bored and trying to prove that he could.

But his girlfriend, Michelle, never forgot – she woke up and saw it all happening, but just watched and didn't say anything.

Awkward AF. Especially when Maxxie told him he didn't have the, erm, skillz to do the job.

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When Jal's clarinet got smashed up and it was really sad

NGL, but Jal was a bit of a non-character.

She was eternally moody and all we knew about her was that she played the clarinet.

But when said clarinet was smashed up thanks to Sid's pathetic attempt at a drugs deal, we did feel really sad.

It was so harsh. Any chance of her smiling after that evaporated.

Especially when things then got really shit for her in series 2 – her boyfriend (and our FAVE) Chris died and she aborted his child.

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When Effy went off clubbing and did heroin aged 10

Ok, she was meant to be like 14, but still. HEROIN, wtf?

It was never confirmed to be the Class A drug, but that's what we were all thinking when we watched it.

Effy was sneaking out of the house, going to illegal raves, injecting said drug into her arm and hanging out with older boys in a van.

We couldn't deal. And still can't.

When we thought Tony died and then they all burst into Wild World and it was a bit weird

Oh. GOD.

When Tony got hit by a truck at the end of series 1, it was probs one of the most dramatic things we'd EVER seen in our teens.

Yeah, we saw it happen to Regina George in Mean Girls, but this was different.

This felt like real life!

We had no idea if Tony had just died minutes after he'd finally told Michelle that he loved her.

And then the cast suddenly started miming along to Wild World by Cat Stevens, and to this day we have no idea why. But we LOVED it.

All 7 seasons of Skin’s is available to watch now on All 4 at http://www.All4.com/programmes/skins

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