SKAM season 3 talkback series: Season Three overview, part two
The SKAM season 3 rewatch talkback series was done in conjunction with a first-time watch for a small group of newbies in 2019. I talked to a cross-section of fans about each episode so our newbies could get a varied taste of what the SKAM fandom was about. I didn’t get to post the final two interviews, here they are at last.
SKAM Season 3: Isak - Structure and Symbolism
Talk back with SKAM recapper @lightsandlostbells
SKAM season three overview (part two) conducted on 25, October 2020
Ghostcat: Hello, hello! Long time no see, here in talkback land. Today we have @lightsandlostbells, who provides my favorite SKAM commentary posts over on tumblr! Go and read if you haven't already. How are you? And welcome to this very lowkey chat corner!
lightsandlostbells: Awwww, thanks for the kind intro. Hello! I'm doing well, how is everyone else? I'm new to Discord so I hope I get this right.
Ghostcat: You only have to type and hit enter. I will attempt to keep things profesh but I can't promise that I'll be successful.
lightsandlostbells: Nice. I'm sitting here drinking tea, underneath my coziest blanket, ready to talk about one of my favorite things ever. It's so cool that years later, people still love Skam season 3 enough to chat about it together.
Ghostcat: Yes! Let's get into this thing, we're here to talk about the tidy little miracle of structure that is SKAM season three. On the one hand, it's a deceptively simple season. Boy comes to terms with sexuality. All's well that ends well. Romance, Drama, plus a sprinkling of mental health issues. 10 episodes, most of them under 30 minutes. I'd call it "mean and lean" if it wasn't such a hopeful story, full of love in a non-saccharine way. Once you start taking it apart and really studying it though, you realize that it's super well-planned, almost like it was ON PURPOSE. lightsandlostbells, you write some of the best recaps of the show. I hesitate to call them just recaps because you really dig into what they're about. What made you start doing them?
lightsandlostbells: 😊 Thank you so much! I started with the remake reactions, actually. When Skam France was released, there was a ton of hype due to being the first remake of Skam. Lots of varying emotions ranging from negative to positive - people who didn't want any remakes, people who were intrigued, and people who were so desperate for any Skam content that they'd take a remake. After the initial clips of Skam France were released, I made a few off-the-cuff posts about what I saw as differences between OG and the remake. Eventually, that grew into me recapping full episodes of the remakes.
Ghostcat: Ah ha.
lightsandlostbells: And eventually that bloomed into me going, well, I love Skam season 3 so much, and it's so wonderfully structured and is packed full of symbolism, why don't I write recaps of those episodes, too? I had all these Feelings about it that weren't going away anytime soon.
Ghostcat: Relatable.
lightsandlostbells: It's such a rich season of TV in detail that there was no shortage of things to write about.
Ghostcat: Before we get into what you discovered in rewatching and recapping, can you tell us a bit about how and when you started watching the show?
lightsandlostbells: By total random chance, haha.
Ghostcat: Were you googling "scam" and misspelled? (because that happened to one of our interviewees).
lightsandlostbells: I love it! No, I have YouTube to blame. In October 2016 this show Eyewitness premiered on USA Network. The show was about two teenage boys in a secret relationship who witness a murder while they're hooking up in the woods. I was like, hey, sounds like it could be good. (Funny thing, it's actually a remake of a Norwegian show...)
Ghostcat: Oh yeah...I think I saw gifs of that.
lightsandlostbells: USA Network put the first 10-15 minutes of the pilot episode on YouTube, so I watched that and then a few videos about the show. Shortly after that, my YT recommendations were full of supercuts of gay storylines...including one called Skam.
Ghostcat: YouTube recs strikes again. So you clicked on...a supercut?
lightsandlostbells: I ignored them for a few days and then, late at night, putting off going to bed, I clicked on a Skam video randomly, thinking I would watch a minute or two and then get bored and exit. Ha.
Ghostcat: LOL.
lightsandlostbells: It was actually the neon party clip!
Ghostcat: Oh geez. My favorite thing about that clip is how nobody at that party sees those two boys and their laser beam eyes. They're just bopping along completely oblivious to this high end romance.
lightsandlostbells: After everyone's finished dancing, Even is just standing there dead-on staring at Isak like he wants to kiss him or slowly murder him and everyone's just puttering around trying to find their phones or w/e.
Ghostcat: True, and then Isak shoots that over the shoulder look in the kitchen and Even is like: 👀
lightsandlostbells: The IsakxEven account on Twitter was still uploading the full clips to YouTube at the time. So I watched that clip, was immediately hooked, and then went back and watched the rest of S3 to that point. By reading the comments, I was able to figure out how the show worked, its real time structure, social media, etc. And then the first clip I saw in real time was the pool scene.
Ghostcat: WOW. What a great clip to see in real time. When we watched it with our newbies, they were all yelling. So genuinely happy for this fictional boy.
lightsandlostbells: THAT WHOLE DAY. I was refreshing the Skam webpage for updates. Because I knewwwwww they were going to finally kiss, for real.
Ghostcat: THIS WAS IT. IT WAS HAPPENING. It made sense that they'd kiss. It was the thing that needed to happen but going into their hell-double date, I was genuinely wondering...how. Good ole Even and his lack of chill.
lightsandlostbells: It definitely did. I remember sitting there watching as they got to the Head over Heels bike ride and my heart was just FLUTTERING. I was vicariously swooning through this epic teen romance.
Ghostcat: It is such a swoon-inspiring moment. The music cue is perfect.
lightsandlostbells: I was also watching in unsubtitled Norwegian.
Ghostcat: Ha ha ha! Really??? So you were filling in the blanks HARD.
lightsandlostbells: Yep! That was my whole S3 (and S4) experience. But it was great in a way because I was able to focus entirely on the acting, reading Tarjei and Henrik's microexpressions. I've mentioned before that I was able to tell Even was having a manic episode from the episode 8 kitchen scene by the acting alone, before I had subtitles.
Ghostcat: Really? We're gonna come back to that. Luckily for us, and I really do think this is an enormous part of SKAM's international appeal, both Henrik and Tarjei are wonderful when it comes to non-verbal acting.
lightsandlostbells: They're amazing. I remember when I wrote the recap for that clip, I had to watch several different times because SO MUCH is happening in that scene - with Isak, with Even, with Isak-and-Even, and also with Sonja and Emma.
Ghostcat: What did you think happened on your first watch without subs?
lightsandlostbells: In the pool/bike/double date from hell scene, I thought maybe Sonja just broke up with Even right then and there.
Ghostcat: Well, it does look that way. That entire scene is a gem of silent movie acting too. Isak on the couch and the five billion ways he has of looking around, looking away, looking directly at. All while winsomely sitting there in the costume Emma put together for him.
lightsandlostbells: I just thought Sonja got sick of dealing with Even and called it off right there, lol. The Norwegian kinda sounds like "We're done" in English which is what put the idea in my head.
Ghostcat: Ha! What did you think when you found out it wasn't quite that simple? Were you like I THOUGHT HE DUMPED HER?
lightsandlostbells: Yes, I had a bit of a grumble.
Ghostcat: Sonja and Emma are having this whole socially appropriate interaction while Even growls softly into his beer (I have such a thing for Even's seething in this scene, it's so overt and we've never seen him do that before.)
lightsandlostbells: Sonja's dialogue there is actually pretty revealing for her character, although you don't really understand until later.
Ghostcat: In what way? *chin hands*
lightsandlostbells: Even is not concealing his real feelings at all, and he's trying to get a silent conversation with Isak happening, and Isak's a bit too skittish to reciprocate.
Ghostcat: Isak is almost afraid to look at him directly but he keeps sneaking looks like he's taking sips of Even and then immediately glancing away. In gifsets, you can always spot the moment his gaze lands on Even and away.
etal: (all while in fancy dress too)
lightsandlostbells: So admittedly a lot of this is headcanon/conjecture, but Sonja is talking to Emma about how she's bored and misses having things to do during the day. It makes me think that just as Even relies on Sonja and sees her as a source of stability, in some ways Even is that for Sonja, too.
Ghostcat: Clearly, Sonia misses structure too. Also on the headcanon tip, but it makes me think about how Sonja's university trajectory was also diverted probably by Even's suicide attempt.
lightsandlostbells: Yes! Taking care of Even brings a sense of purpose to her life. We know from a previous clip she's working a crappy retail job that probably isn't very satisfying.
Ghostcat: That idea kind of piles on to Even's complicated feelings about dumping her.
lightsandlostbells: That's a good point! I've wondered about Sonja and university because it sounds like she isn't in school from her conversation with Emma.
Ghostcat: She's not and she definitely comes across as a driven, organized person which is why it surprised me that she wasn't.
etal: (She is, in a way unbalanced, even though she has both her legs.)
Ghostcat: Ha! Yes. It's a complex, thorny situation between the two of them. So much more than just a simple obstacle.
lightsandlostbells: One thing I appreciate about season 3 is that it really shows you why Even and Sonja need to break up without demonizing either of them.
Ghostcat: It's brilliant! It's very hard to do. Andem did a little bit of that with Jonas and Eva, but here, I think it's very high stakes. Was their troubled relationship something that you kind of understood on a surface level on first watch but deepened upon rewatch? It was for me, on first watch, I definitely knew they were wrong for one another, but upon rewatch it felt so much sadder. She's not the obstacle people think she is.
lightsandlostbells: It really is. Season 3 in general develops such high stakes beyond just "will this cute boy get with the other cute boy" and while it'd still be wonderful as a sweet romance, it ends up feeling downright profound by the end. Definitely deepened upon rewatch.
Ghostcat: Andem doesn't skimp on emotional truth with these characters. People don't do things arbitrarily. They all have their reasons for doing what they do. And it's not entirely in the service of a plotline the way it often seems in scripted drama.
lightsandlostbells: She's definitely not a shallow obstacle to be disposed of. Sonja represents Even's larger struggle, as well as being her own person, of course. If I can get into S4 here - I think this is why the conflict works so well with Even and Sonja versus a somewhat similar love triangle-type conflict with the Sana/Yousef/Noora situation. Which doesn't work for me nearly as well.
Ghostcat: Yeah, that didn't work so well. Andem needed Yousef to "give up" on Sana and hook up with someone else BUT it didn't match the character or how his feelings for Sana had been portrayed. The plot demanded it, but the characters didn't agree.
lightsandlostbells: Because once Even breaks up with Sonja, there's still the larger issue of mental illness that he and Isak need to face together. The problem really isn't Sonja's presence, after all. But with Sana/Yousef/Noora, the "conflict" really hinges on miscommunication and a simple 5-second conversation would have saved weeks of drama. It's over as soon as Noora tells Sana the truth. It's not a complex conflict.
Ghostcat: No. Not at all.
lightsandlostbells: Yeah, it was a case of the plot demanding the characters act a certain way instead of feeling organic. Also demanding that no one talk to each other for weeks...
Ghostcat: On rewatch, what was the first big thing you noticed about the structure that made you go, WOW, they did that. Mine was Even's flippant little "Did you think I died?"
lightsandlostbells: Yes, that was huge. I think the pool scene and the subsequent cuddle scene are packed with little moments like that.
Ghostcat: It's handled very deftly. His comment is so throwaway, it could be an improv BUT IT ISN'T and that's bolstered by Even's comments during the I'm Not in Love scene.
lightsandlostbells: Also earlier in the scene, when Sonja reveals that she's graduated. They leave it to you and Isak to connect the dots…hmmm, they're the same age but Even hasn't graduated yet? Wonder why. And then they just move on before you can think about it too much
Ghostcat: And Isak was going to ask Even why he transferred as a senior in Lykke til Isak. But they're interrupted by Emma.
lightsandlostbells: Yep, that too.
Ghostcat: The thing is Isak has been set up from season one as an observant guy.
lightsandlostbells: Emma literally plants herself between them...
Ghostcat: So he's trying to piece things together because he genuinely wants to know Even but Even is very good at diverting his pesky feelings. It made me wonder how Andem decided to spread out those clues and when and why?
lightsandlostbells: That happens all throughout the season. Another big hint you only notice on rewatch: Sonja's aluminum leg.
Ghostcat: Yes and the realization, when you look at the social media, of how often Even tries to communicate indirectly with songs and quotes and references.
lightsandlostbells: That was probably one of the biggest. Because it works so well in character, as Even being this weird quirky guy, spinning this wild story for a laugh, and only later do you realize he was genuinely trying to communicate with Isak. IT'S SO GOOD.
Ghostcat: So good.
lightsandlostbells: That's such a sharp character detail! (The songs and quotes and references).
Ghostcat: Particularly when you loop it with "I saw you on the first day of school" because it recasts nearly everything he says to Isak, not just because we know he had feelings but because now we know he had time to think about what he would say to him and of course, how he would present himself, at his best (cough that deliberate courtyard walk).
lightsandlostbells: Oh yes, "I saw you the first day of school" is absolutely a killer moment. Totally makes you want to rewatch the whole season.
Ghostcat: AND IT WORKS. it's no retcon!! that's what makes it so good.
lightsandlostbells: Even really does treat his life like a movie! Specifically a romantic comedy where he is the star. The paper towels are his version of a Meet Cute
Ghostcat: His love even gets the beauty close-ups in the stoney hang. The other thing that became apparent to me was how on rewatching, Even's influence felt bigger.
lightsandlostbells: It's alllll over the season.
Ghostcat: Yes! I muddled it all up in my head. I hadn't realized that Isak hadn't seen R+J yet.
lightsandlostbells: I mean, from the moment he mentions Baz Luhrmann, and we bring R+J into the picture, that shapes so much of the season.
Ghostcat: But there's Even, doing his best DiCaps Romeo look to camera/Isak. His idea, his framing, his choice of song.
lightsandlostbells: And I was lucky enough to watch from episode 5 onward in real time, and despite all the cuteness and romance, there was this level of dread hanging over everything all the time, because I was expecting the R+J focus to pay off later.
Ghostcat: It's meant to be there. You're meant to feel it
lightsandlostbells: And it does! Just not in the way everyone was fearing
Ghostcat: Using Luhrmann's R+J as the central motif works spectacularly and it's not the first time it comes up!
lightsandlostbells: Yeah, I mentioned in a recap that Isak hadn't watched R+J by the time Even does his alluring courtyard walk to Talk Show Host, so it almost comes across as Even's POV when you make the connection to the film.
Ghostcat: Andem tried to use it in season two with Noora and William in front of a fish tank but it doesn't resonate.
lightsandlostbells: Oh yeah...them.
Ghostcat: Here she brings it back and it makes sense.
lightsandlostbells: Not to get into Noorhelm but parts of S3 feel like course correction with regards to the development of the love interest and relationship.
Ghostcat: I agree. The biggest correction being a couple that actually likes each other.
lightsandlostbells: Yep!
Ghostcat: That's one way to kick things off in the right direction.
lightsandlostbells: And Even has so many interests and hobbies compared to William.
Ghostcat: Even is so different from Isak and yet he DELIGHTS in those differences. Neither of them is trying to change the other. Their differences complement one another.
lightsandlostbells: It honestly is amazing how Evak just works so well as a ship, in all directions. Like, I've tried to break that pairing down into words, and I just fail, every time, because it's got so much going for it.
Ghostcat: Back to R+J as a framing device: Even is a film student > Luhrmann is his favorite > he mentions his love of tragic romance > he sets up that pool kiss > he talks about death and loss > he's fearful of change and yet seemingly absolutely certain of his feelings for Isak. For whatever reason, we know he thinks there's an element of the forbidden with his relationship with Isak and we're led to believe (mistakenly) that it's because he has a girlfriend, but really the forbidden is Even himself, who doesn't think he should have this.
@etal-late: I mean 👆
Ghostcat: By likening them to R+J, he believes their love is fated but impossible but he lets himself have it for a little while. All the clues stack up.
etal: 'The forbidden is Even' ouch yes.
Ghostcat: He's feeding them to us and Isak so that when Isak goes to the church and Nils Bech is up there singing and the neon cross is shining and the montage starts and ISAK FIGURES IT OUT. That run, paired with those strings, and that backward montage―
lightsandlostbells: Oh I'm so glad you brought up O Helga Natt, because that's where I was about to go with this, lol.
Ghostcat: ―hits like a ton of bricks. Suddenly all these little moments, them talking in bed, the kiss in the elevator are reframed in a new context. Their love becomes EPIC.
lightsandlostbells: YessssSSSSSSS (the part of this chat where I get incoherent has COMMENCED)
Ghostcat: And, as we find out at the end of the ep, it's NOT because someone dies. It's because of how real it is.
lightsandlostbells: So going back to what we were saying about Even communicating through notes/art/music: I think that's why Even's text in O Helga Natt is so effective. Because throughout the season, he's been dropping hints to his emotional state through his sketches and song lyrics, and we're like Isak, we're trying to piece it all together. With that text, Even finally lays out his true feelings in this vulnerable, direct manner. Then as soon as Isak connects the dots, all those clues in the season pay off. It was absolutely glorious to watch this in real time because I was dreading this would be a story about death. Instead, it became a story about rebirth.
Ghostcat: YES. Which ties into the story of Isak/Isaac in the Bible.
etal: Woah
Ghostcat: Lest we forget that Mamma has been doubling up on the indirect hints as well. Her texts are also clues.
lightsandlostbells: O Helga Natt is utter brilliance. I know everybody recognizes it's a masterpiece, but there are just so many things happening in it. It was difficult to write about for recaps because I didn't want to miss anything. I still feel like I did.
Ghostcat: Because things continually reveal themselves about it.
lightsandlostbells: Yeah, Mamma even mentions baptism like immediately before the clip, lmao.
Ghostcat: Yeah! It’s oh so spectacularly specific but never labored.
@modestytreehouse: My god she does.
Ghostcat: It feels like a gift.
lightsandlostbells: The pool scene and O Helga Natt are mirrors of each other and I think that's such a testament to Julie Andem's mastery of structure. (Also the cuddle scene and Minutt for minutt are mirrors. Lots of scenes in S3 are mirrors to each other.)
Ghostcat: The symmetry of this season is spectacular. Even with the most throwaway nonsense.
lightsandlostbells: I'm a huge sucker for symmetry and it's all over the place in S3.
Ghostcat: Like Magnus and that cat tongue girl.
lightsandlostbells: Yep!
Ghostcat: Ending the season by making out with a meowing Vilde.
lightsandlostbells: The dance chicks: starts with Isak being alienated from his friends as they drool over hot chicks. They come back so Isak can confidently reject them, in a scene where he also talks about which of his male friends he'd bang.
Ghostcat: I remember watching it and saying out loud OH MY GOD, EVEN CAT HOOKER PAID OFF.
treehouse: (21.21)
Ghostcat: Sana and the 10%. Isak being unable to say a guy is hot
lightsandlostbells: That's such a nice little Christmas bow, lol.
Ghostcat: --to telling his boyfriend exactly that. Avoiding his parents/reuniting with his parents and about to meet Even’s. A party where he’s off in another room pretending. A party where he’s in another room being as real as can be. Lying to truth-telling.
lightsandlostbells: Isak putting on a fake persona to flirt with Emma at her locker about "the asshole" to Isak being himself with her and bringing back "the asshole" comment in episode 10.
Ghostcat: Yes! Everything is suitably rounded upon. It is airtight.
lightsandlostbells: Except the girls who were hungover on a Wednesday.
Ghostcat: They're still hungover, it's four years later. Still fucked up (we are those girls). [Mod note: it’s five years later, we are still those Hungover Wednesday girls]
lightsandlostbells: They might want to pop a vitamin IDK. Lol yes, Julie Andem had a plan for them all along! They were symbolic representations of the audience.
Ghostcat: Ha ha ha.
lightsandlostbells: When I think about S3 I physically manifest into that Ben Affleck smoking gif.
Ghostcat: All this talk of perfection leads me to the final question in this section of our conversation…you know what's coming.
lightsandlostbells: Oh, and the representations of time in S3 also have payoff!
Ghostcat: We didn't get there!
lightsandlostbells: From big talk of "forever" and "infinite time" to "minutt by minutt" and "now" (Sorry)
Ghostcat: Oops. Ha ha ha. But yes! Also important, along with the numbers nudging us along, all that very deliberate time, BUT this is big talk so let me dumb things down with the following question―what is your interpretation of the following emoji hieroglyphics: ❤️ 🐬 🌞 🍆 💯
lightsandlostbells: "Isak, I love you so much and also you make me horny as Flipper. The sun shines out of your dick. Full marks."
Ghostcat: Excellent.
lightsandlostbells: Aren't dolphins notoriously horny in real life? I'm not a marine biologist.
Ghostcat: I am and it’s true, they are famously horny and pansexual as well!
lightsandlostbells: JULIE ANDEM DOING IT AGAIN.
Ghostcat: I'm not actually a marine biologist, but I couldn't resist…the symmetry. :sunglasses emoji:
___
Thank you so much for reading these interviews! I will post a master post of links to all of these if you feel like nerding out at your leisure.
Thank you again to all of our interview participants! You were very kind to say yes.
Last but not least, thank you to our first watch crew for agreeing to go on this little ride back in 2019. We hope you enjoyed watching SKAM with us. 💗
