When Karma does show herself — after, apparently, leaving school grounds, breaking into Amy’s house, getting Amy’s journal, tearing out all the pages and littering them all over the school in about 30 minutes — she’s thrown off when Amy says she was on her way to apologize for leaking “Hump Day.” “Karma, not only am I no longer in love with you, I no longer want you as a friend,” says Amy. SO THERE.
“Well, that makes two of us!” yells Karma, fighting back tears, before being yanked into Principal Penelope Delia Fisher’s office for a talking-to.
Penelope: “I hereby declare you guilty of bullying and, even worse, of littering.”
Sparia fanfic? Really?
I know. It’s not the same after Spaleb.
AND THEN, and then! Dylan shows up to criticize Karma’s personality. Like he thought she was a totally chill drama-free girl like him — somebody who likes pushing their hair behind their ears, talking about Shane’s nipples, singing around the campfire, etc — and now here she is, freaking out about “Hump Day!” and giving out Amy’s diary like it’s the Liberty Lit.
Back out on Hester High’s Highland Hello Park Lawn, Lauren’s collecting scattered pages in hopes of sparing Amy further humiliation. If somebody did this with my diary, I would have exactly zero friends. Then Shane shows up, but his motive is more menacing: he wants to see what Amy wrote about him. YOU GUYS. Lesson #1: You do not want to know what anybody writes about you in their diary. You don’t! I learned this in 9th grade when I read Kristyna’s diary and found out that she thought I followed her around like a “pathetic little sister” and wasn’t cool enough to hang out with Brad. :-( Brad was a drug dealer, JUST FOR THE RECORD. Anyhow, Lauren and Shane disregard my advice and start hunting for Amy’s secret private back-stabby feelings.
The “Spencer and Aria french kiss in yet another Rosewood house without any overhead lighting while A creeps around knocking shit over in the kitchen” story is MINE!
Meanwhile, Amy and Liam are facing the harsh realities of being two young good-looking uber-teens on the prowl, being cajoled by readers of 50 Shades of Amy.
Liam: To be fair, she was just trying to humiliate you the same way that you humiliated her.
Amy: Of course you’re defending her! Because you still have a thing for her!
Liam: See, I think that you’re projecting onto me because you still have feelings for her.
Amy: I do not! In fact, Karma is dead to me and I don’t give a shit what happens to her anymore.
And then, at that moment, they turn the corner to find Dylan kissing a random girl in some random Hester Alcove of Sweet Burning Love, and feel concerned.
So THAT’S where they’ve been hiding the giant pear!
Meanwhile, Karma is on the warpath. She goes straight to Vashti and says she’s ready for her close-up. Even more meanwhile, Shane and Lauren are participating in an activity best described as My Worst Nightmare — reading Amy’s private thoughts about them. Like that Shane intentionally dates guys who won’t challenge him and that Lauren shouldn’t need twitter followers to feel validated. Then they read “but what Shane and Lauren DON’T know…” and then, that’s it. They don’t have page 172!! THEY HAVE TO FIND PAGE 172!!
BOOM TOLDJA THERE WAS GONNA BE A THREESOME WITH WREN!
Ugh of COURSE the threesome isn’t with Emily. It’s NEVER the lesbian who gets any action.
Right, so, Dylan is cheating on Karma, who’s gonna tell her? Amy tells Liam that it’s his job to tell Karma that Dylan’s cheating on her and bla bla anyhow, let’s tune in to The Karma Interview: Live and In Person with Vashti in a Dark Room With Hotel Conference Room Furniture, in which Karma apologizes and assures everybody (Dylan) that she’s still that relaxed, cool, care-free girl they all came to love this past summer. She elaborates further: “I’m all good.”
Vashti asks her if she’s read Amy’s journal and she says she hasn’t because that would be a violation of Amy’s privacy.
Vashti: You leaked them to the whole school.
Karma: Again! was a crime of passion. Regrettable, sure, but also completely understandable and relatable and not a sign of my chill personality changing.
Listen, I eat bread EVERY. DAY. Every day!
Now it’s time for the tough questions.
Vashti: Deep down, do you have feelings for her?
Karma: No. As a friend, sure. But I’m straight.
Vashti: Is it possible that you’re not as straight as you think?
Karma: Excuse me?
Vashti: Well, you did kiss Zita at Liam Booker’s Bar Mitzvah.
Karma: Okay, Zita kissed ME, as I’ve explained many times! But I am not here to make excuses, I am here to tell my side of the story.
Vashti: But that’s just it. Your story doesn’t add up. You claim you’re straight, but there’s a pattern of you kissing girls, you can see why people would wonder—
Amy, for example. Amy is wondering.
Every day? Really?
And then Karma, much like so many not-straight women before her, decides that the interview is over. Anyhow, she’s got Compost Detention to attend. But Liam stops Karma on her way to compost detention to give her a truth sandwich with a side of concern, which I think he hopes will be a soft lead-in to telling her that Dylan is sticking his tongue down some other turkey’s throat. Karma doesn’t wanna hear what Liam has to say though ’cause he’s her ex and therefore biased. Liam insists he’s totally over her.
Karma: “Great! I love everybody being totally over me!”
But before he can get to the climax of the story, she tears up and says her day has been terrible and he can’t handle more terribleness. The end.
Listen, if Sparia fanfiction doesn’t butter your roll, I know for a fact that Amy has a whole trunk full of Emison back home
Hey, remember Oliver? Well, he’s getting creepier and creepier but in a funny way, so it’s fine: also, he obviously has page 172.
C’mon, there’s a threesome with Emily scene in there somewhere, right?
See for yourself.
Well?
Looks like Karma kept the Emilsparia scenes all to herself.
The end of Amy’s sentence is: “…they’re cut from the same cloth and are destined to be best friends.” Shane and Lauren say “she has no idea what she’s talking about” at the same time in that way you can tell that they had to do like ten takes to get that shit down.
Seriously, though: although I’ve got no desire to witness additional plots based upon what this person said about that person or this or that misinterpretation or this lie somebody told to somebody else — this whole diary thing has been a total non-starter! As a storyteller, how do you leak somebody’s diary to the entire school and then do absolutely nothing with it? Nothing truly juicy or even embarrassing has been leaked or followed up on? For that matter, what purpose was served by the “Hump Day” video besides to add a little comic sans to yet another episode about Karma and Amy being in a fight and inspire the students to make fun of her ? GET ANOTHER LESBIAN IN THIS SCHOOL ALREADY.
Over at the Hester Artporium, Dylan offers Amy some help with her Data Bench, which apparently belongs under Liam’s Artistic Accident, which is a good opportunity for Amy to tell Dylan that she knows about him and Stevie. Ugh of course it was Stevie. That bitch. Right on time, Karma rounds the corner looking very hot in a Rosie the Riveter situation just as Amy’s asking Dylan why he doesn’t just break up with her if he’s gonna cheat on her. Karma thinks Amy’s trying to break them up, so Amy’s like, listen Dylan, fess up because there are only three minutes left in this episode and girls haven’t made out yet. So he does.
Hey did you by any chance borrow my yogurt?
Look man, I have my own yogurt
Dylan tells Karma they’re just not vibing anymore, and Karma says maybe they aren’t vibing because he doesn’t think it’s okay for her to ever have feelings or thoughts besides “all good.” Amy tells Dylan to go die in a volcano. Penelope hears Amy and throws her into compost detention so her and Karma can have a nice ending scene in cute outfits.
You’re not allowed to look at me like that
Of course, it’s only a matter of time before Karma and Amy are throwing rotted vegetables and foodscraps at each other, yelling about betrayal and how Amy slept with Liam and Karma forgave her but then Amy left for the summer! Honestly, Karma’s not a good friend. She holds intense selfish grudges and thinks nobody should ever do anything for themselves unless she benefits.
Amy: You forced me to kiss you over and over again and then you rejected me!
Karma: That’s because I’m straight.
Amy: Oh are you sure about that? Because you had a real hard time answering Vashti’s questions! Come on, admit it, either you’re playing mind games or there’s a small part of you that wanted to kiss me!
Idunoevenlikelentilsyoutaketehemmmm
Amy’s summer evolution has done this much: she finally has the confidence to tell Karma that she’s a little queer whether she likes it or not. But then there’s a mouse and they scream and put a bucket over it and omg, so now they’re sitting back to back on the bucket.
FINALLY I’ve had to piss for like three hours
So let’s get down and dirty and really flesh this thing out, shall we? We’re running out of time!
Amy: You know, I had to ask myself… if I evolved, then why did it hurt so bad to see you kiss her? Why did that bring me right back to that shallow end of the pool? Maybe I’m not 100% over you and maybe there’s a part of me that never will be.
Karma: And maybe I kissed you in the pool because maybe a small part of me does want you to be in love with me. Because it feels good. I know it’s so selfish. I don’t want to keep hurting you, Amy. But I don’t know how to be your friend without hurting you.
Amy: I don’t know either.
Just now when I was doing a google image search for a feature image for this post, I glanced a headline of another recap that described this revelation as a “shocker,” like we were getting this huge surprise glimpse into Karma’s motivations. I’m assuming that recap wasn’t from a queer website, I didn’t click it ’cause I like my reaction to the show to remain unspoiled by that of others. But if you’ve ever fallen for a straight girl, or known someone who has — or even been best friends with a straight girl who had manipulative tendencies — you already thought of this. Sometimes when you’re young and confused girls use that crush you have on them, or the fact that you’d probably be willing to make out even if you didn’t want to date them, as its own kind of pawn to keep you close to her for all the wrong reasons, even when it hurts.
Be honest, what do you think of my dress?
I thought we’d all agreed to wear the same outfit for our performance tonight.
In fact, it was YOUR idea for us to wear Dickies instead of cute dresses.
Looks like this trio just became a duo
Well, I hope we all go home tonight and pray to our goddesses that another lesbian will show up at Amy’s high school and they can make out next to giant pieces of fake fruit.
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Oh wow, Amy is nice even in her diary. I’m kinda glad the diary didn’t really go anywhere, I’m over diary leaking as plot device.
On an unrelated note, there is a bartender at my old “Cheers” who looks exactly like Rita Volk. I was sad to hear that she was totally straight, and I was the “15 millionth person” to tell her about Faking It. Womp womp.
Yeah I totally hate that as a plot device — because it usually ends up just being a farce where one person has to prove they didn’t really MEAN what they wrote, which is boring and gets us nowhere — but why use that instead of something that could go somewhere? or maybe have the diary reveal a secret that none of us knew about amy? or tell us something about that summer they’re not telling us about? you know?
Oh great, now you have me wanting to write fanfic about some sort of secret thing Amy could have written about. Some sort of super gay thing.
I have to say, I find leaking someone’s diary and thus their innermost thoughts to be a major offense and in this case a horrible betrayal. Obviously, this hump day video was embarrassing but it was really tame in comparison to the diary.
I am also glad that they let that go in the show, but wow, I would be furious.
What gets me is that Dylan is the kind of character that Liam should have been. One that drives Karma and Amy’s story forward. Instead Carter Covington made him the third main character in (what’s supposed to be) a story about the relationship between two girls.
I am glad to hear you say this, because I have seen a person complaining on another article that the show is “stuck on this boring friendship storyline that no one cares about”. But like, that’s the whole damn point of the show, isn’t it?
It really is weird that a hippie school like Hester only has one out lesbian, one out gay male, and 1 out intersex person in its entire population. It’s like we’re tokens on a show that’s supposed to be about us….
it’s super weird… WHERE’S THE GSA
I mean I went to high school in Austin, and we had no GSA and there was one out lesbian. But of course TV is nothing like real life
“I learned this in 9th grade when I read Kristyna’s diary and found out that she thought I followed her around like a “pathetic little sister” and wasn’t cool enough to hang out with Brad. Brad was a drug dealer, JUST FOR THE RECORD.”
^^This is SO REAL, last Christmas I found a 7th/8th grade diary I didn’t even know I still had and got to re-live how my best frenemy Emily and my (boy) crush MK and a bunch of other people I thought I was becoming friends with voted me down from getting invited to their Relay For Life team cause they thought my voice was annoying, among other shitty things. I only found out about this because my actual real BFF Carolyn let me have her private LIVEJOURNAL password and let me read the post I was blocked from.
This has been the most middle school circa 2003 post ever.
Huh, very confused about how this music video popped up in my comment instead of “2003” ?!
This sounds like excellent drama. In retrospect, of course.
I’m not always happy I was so obvs gay straight girls wouldn’t be ‘close’ friends with me by HS, but then I read these recaps
“WHO ARE WE GONNA FUCK WITH ALL OUR EXTRA DILDOS????!!!”
^this, if you’re wondering, if why I don’t watch the show but hardly miss a recap. Quality dildo jokes.
I feel overcome by the need to have a Kon Mari Top-Chef inspired show where instead of “pack up your knives and go,” it’s “you no longer spark joy.”
“If Quinn could survive “Lucy Caboosey,” I can certainly survive this!”
I BEG TO DIFFER, MARIE LYNN BERNARD. Quinn’s coping mechanism to Lucy Caboosey was to become a cruel vindictive person until she finally felt accepted by the person whom she bullied endlessly as a way to project her own self-loathi- *muffled and then dragged off-stage*
It irks me to no end that Karma is so ATTRACTIVE because she’s just the worst person and I hate that I can’t stop staring at her because she’s so pretty.
Also – not sure if it was an intentional pun, but mentioning Zen alongside Dylan just reminded me how Karma’s brother would totally get along with Dylan because they’re both insufferable self-righteous jackasses.
“Sometimes when you’re young and confused girls use that crush you have on them, or the fact that you’d probably be willing to make out even if you didn’t want to date them, as its own kind of pawn to keep you close to her for all the wrong reasons, even when it hurts.”
This.
Even one of my closest friends in high school did this to me—and she was glaringly straight. It was tough, but it was a lesson I’m glad I learned.
I feel like that if I had written a book or a TV show when I was 15, it would have been Faking It.
Busco a alguna ,con la cual pueda conversar, y conocer
Big fan of autostraddle recaps, not a fan of microaggressions. Can we avoid the phrase “on the warpath”?