“There are three things this show does very well that are depicted beautifully here. The first is the shifting allegiances of being an adolescent, the way that trying on those new guises means not just that you might end up hanging out with a different clique but that you might end up hanging out with new people within that clique. The second is the ever-growing sense that Lindsay, much as she likes hanging out with the Freaks, doesn’t quite understand what she’s gotten herself into…she carries many, many assumptions about the way life is from how she’s been raised, and hanging out with the Freaks quickly disabuses her of those notions. Finally, ‘Kim Kelly Is My Friend’ vividly depicts the way that going over to a friend’s house as a kid is sometimes a one-way ticket to realizing just how great a gulf exists between you and that person.”

“‘Girlfriends And Boyfriends’  may have become likely the most famous episode of the show for one simple reason: Everybody has liked someone who doesn’t like them back. Everybody has been liked by someone and been unable to return the favor. And sooner or later, all that unchecked emotion spills over the edge, and everybody gets uncomfortable. Sooner or later, we’ll all be Nick Andopolis, howling out our love. But sooner or later, we’ll all be Lindsay Weir as well, unable to deal with whatever it is that’s going on in front of us, just wishing it would stop already.”

“If Freaks And Geeks is about trying on personas, then it also needs to be about how trying on all of those personas can eventually lead to a truer self. The central tension of the series is between mathlete Lindsay and Freak Lindsay, and…Freaks And Geeks holds that tension in its head nicely. Lindsay probably stands a better chance of getting into MIT if she’s first block on the Mathletes, but she’s also not direly hurting herself by hanging out with the Freaks. Indeed, they, in many ways, give her the confidence to be more truly herself. There doesn’t have to be a line between the Lindsay who dresses conservatively and in pink and the Lindsay who sneaks out of a sleepover to go to a midnight movie. They can be two parts of the same complicated person.”

“Despite there being two names of cliques in the title, the characters are basically good-hearted and nice to each other across clique lines. Even jocks like Todd are nice to geeks like Sam when they need be, and no line is so impermeable that it can’t be crossed once or twice…World-building and character development take time, and they require a generosity of spirit that isn’t always easy to conjure up….At times, it seems like Freaks And Geeks has nothing but generosity toward its characters. Consider, for instance, that the major storylines in this episode revolve around the pairings of Coach Fredericks (named ‘Ben,’ as it turns out) and Bill, and Kim and Millie.”

“(T)his was always Lindsay’s story. It was the story of a girl who found the answers she’d built her life around previously wanting and then listened to a different side of her personality for a while. And when even that didn’t work, when she was still the smartest kid in school, even without seeming to try, she went out of her way to blow her life up even more. If this show were from Harold and Jean’s point-of-view, or even Mr. Rosso’s, we might say she was acting out. But because this show is about Lindsay, it never feels that way. She knows the gravity of what she’s doing, but she needs to follow that muse to the ends of the Earth, even if that means her parents may never trust her again.”

I’m dying to talk about this show with you if you’re a fellow Freaks and Geeks fan! What are your favorite episodes? Who are your favorite characters? And were you more of a Freak or a Geek in high school?

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