5. Top 8
As Sophia’s vintage fashion outlet rakes in customers and positive reviews, her MySpace presence expands massively, and Annie finds herself knocked out of Sophia’s list of top friends. This entire episode is so 2006 it actually hurts. The duo fall out over Sophia’s lack of loyalty to her long term gal, and the majority of the episode is a retrospective flashback to the formative days of their friendship.
The flashbacks are useful because they go some way towards explaining why Annie tolerates Sophia’s brattiness: she always has, and most likely will always continue to do so. Resultantly, the viewer isn’t exactly left waiting with baited breath for these two girls to kiss and make up, in fact the whole apology process feels a little drawn out given the inconsequential nature of their dispute to begin with.
Nonetheless, this is the first episode that feels like it carries a deliberate moral message: stay grounded and remember who your friends are when you experience success.
Verdict: A little more substance than we’ve seen so far, but the show still labours it’s point, dragging out the fight for a whole episode seems like overkill.