TV Analysis - Skins (Cassie's Episode)

Skins is a TV series following the lives of a group of teen's and their outrageous lives. Each episode concentrates on one of the main characters, this particular one focusing on Cassie, an anorexic, drug addicted girl who likes to party, but is portrayed as an air head. This episode comes from series 1.
This extract starts with Cassie sitting on a bus, after a party, and finishes with her staring up at a baby mobile.
The first shot we are shown is a close up shot of Cassie, in her own little world with the rest of the mise-en scene taken up by the back seat row of a bus.
Throughout this bus journey, digetic sounds are heard such as the other children on the bus eating food, along with close-up's of the people's mouths. This is turned to irony as Cassie discovers a post-it note which is causing her discomfort, stuck to the back of her dress, reading "EAT!" in plain and simple writing. This sequence of events on the bus indicates the representation of Cassie's eating problem, and how these shots are focusing on the problem.
Through the first series of shots, on the bus, Cassie is portrayed as a sort of angel, in the way she presents herself, and how others act around her, and her general attitude to life whilst sitting there. She wears a white dress, and has long blonde hair draping down her back and over her shoulders.
On the bus, there is a subtle theme of children, as there are many close-up's and medium shot's of school children eating, and the small toddler extending a hand with a biscuit to Cassie, al exaggerating the theme of Cassie's anorexia. While Cassie is sitting on the bus, the camera is positioned in front of her face, so her features are clearly viewable. After Cassie finds the post-it note, reading "EAT!", she carefully sticks it to the bus window next to her, which attracts the attention to a toddler, who must be old enough to read, as he/she responds to the post-it by extending an arm, with a biscuit in the hand, towards Cassie, which is shot against the window of the bus. The window is made to look lighter, as if they are riding a bus through clouds or heaven, which also gives another hint of how angelic Cassie is in her setting.
The scene then changes to Cassie walking into her house, which is middle-class, however has a V.W camper van parked outside, a type of vehicle that middle-age hippies used to own, hinting a few things about her parents personalities.
When Cassie enters her house and goes into her kitchen, we immediately see her parents who are also wearing mainly/all white, and who are fondling each other passionately. At this point we see a zoomed in close-up of Cassie's facial expression, a gloomy gormless look, as if to say she was used to but but still felt surprised or uncomfortable. On the wall there is quite a large painting of Cassie's mother, who is naked and attached to a baby. This is shown over Cassie feeding her baby sister. As her parents try to make excuses to go upstairs to carry on their sexual playing, Cassie volunteered to feed and change her baby sibling. We gain a sense of Cassie's relationship with her parents being quite distant, and not as close as it should be regarding Cassie's situation, as when her father asks her about if she's eaten, he hear's her answer, which is an obvious lie about Michelle's breakfast, but immediately runs upstairs for sex.
Cassie's mother is not seen as stereotypical at all, and her dressed in white (aswell as the rest of the family, showing their angelic feeling and baby-like features of their personalities). It also displays another aspect of their "hippy" past, because their clothes are baggy and clean white. This contrasts with the mise-en-scene behind them, of a clean middle-class house, but fits in well with the camper van. The parents seem to be stuck between the two worlds.
Cassie's loose relationship with her family hints toward a reason of her anorexia, something that she can control and maintain in her life, as the rest seems quite unstable.
The whole series of events in the kitchen makes us sympathize Cassie and her home situation, along with her illness. This is enhanced when we see Cassie take on the role of her mother, feeding the baby, and then proceeding to change the baby.
The baby's bedroom's mise-en-scene is quite stereotypical, and nothing is out of the ordinary, it is a typical baby's room. The walls are covered in brightly coloured wallpaper, and the room has a fair few baby toy's in, on the floor and on the desks. There is a pleasant cot with a baby mobile hanging over it, with colourful shapes at the end of its strings.
There are a few close-up's of Cassie holding, cuddling & comforting the baby, but also showing how Cassie is childlike herself.
As Cassie is sitting by the baby's cot, fingering a pill, she receives a text message, that reads "EAT!", she raises herself slightly from her chair, looking worried, and stares out the window. This shows that she is quite worried about people's opinions of her eating disorder. However, it also shows that she covers this concern with her excessive drug use, as she swallows the pill as some non-digetic baby chime music comes in, partially masking the noise of her paren'ts having sex. The music could be seen as comforting to her, taking her to her childhood, but also a representation of how the drugs affect her. The final shot shows Cassie's veiw, staring at the baby mobile above, as if she's a baby in the cot herself. However by the end of the shot the mobile goes blurry, another representation of how the drugs are setting in, but also seeming as if she's about to go to sleep.