Freaks, Geeks and no bellyaches
25-year-old show hasn't aged a bit
“Because she’s a goddess! Am I the last sane man on this god-forsaken planet?”
So says nerdy Neal to his equally-nerdy friend Sam in Freaks and Geeks, explaining why he’s mad to ditch his girlfriend, the pretty and popular cheerleader Cindy.
The show aired 25 years ago but I only got to see the final episodes over the last few weeks, when I rewatched the series for the first time since it was on originally.
I was in America when it came out, seemed to do well, then got cancelled after 12 of its 18 episodes. It was on E4 in the UK in 2001 apparently but I don’t remember it.
If you’ve not seen it, you can do so on Prime and various other efforts. This time around I didn’t exactly dive into it. I watched the pilot and it was pretty good, but I didn’t pile through them. It was initially a drip-feed of, there’s nothing else on so I’ll watch it.
The show is set in a school in an unnamed Midwestern US City. It’s about three nerds (the geeks), four “rebel” types (the freaks) and one girl who isn’t either at the start, although she is interested in the freaks. There are others in it but these are the main characters.
In itself it doesn’t seem particularly groundbreaking - there are loads of “coming of age” shows of young people finding themselves and their way in life. Often with hilarious consequences!
But there was something about Freaks that set it apart. Loads of people in the show went on to have brilliant careers: creator Paul Feig, Judd Apatow (executive producer), Linda Cardellini, Jason Segel, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Martin Starr and John Francis Daley (who went on to co-write Horrible Bosses, among other things).
There’s plenty been written about Freaks and I’m not going over it all again but, what struck me watching it was that, at its heart, the show was about Lindsay - arguably the lead character - and Kim, a freak who is initially very hostile towards her.
Kim is horrible to pretty much everyone at the beginning, including her boyfriend Daniel (Franco). It’s Daniel who first brings Lindsay around to the freaks (I forget why).
None of them are having any of it though and dismiss Lindsay as being a swot (Kim calls her “brain”).
L story S, things move along and Kim and Lindsay grow closer together. Each leaning on the other at various points, despite both seeming to remain a bit suspicious for a while. It was at this point when rewatching it that I started to get drawn in.
About halfway through the series, after a horrible dinner with Kim’s family ends with everyone screaming, Kim tells Lindsay she is her only friend. This seems either a bit of a stretch, or desperate as they’d seemingly been forced together by chance.
But Kim has a rotten home life and possibly sees something in Lindsay’s that she wants but can’t have. Maybe that was part of the attraction of Lindsay. Her parents seem quite uptight but they’re pretty supportive and seem to let their kids get away with a fair bit.
The turning point - when they seem to fully commit - comes when Lindsay defends Kim after her parents say they don’t want her hanging round with her.
Then (not straight after) the two of them accidentally run over the dog of Lindsay’s friend Millie, and it’s Kim who (eventually) tells Millie what happened. She had a dog die so can relate, but she also wants to do the right thing.
Kim and Lindsay’s relationship grows and they almost seem to become two parts of one personality - each offering what the other maybe lacks.
In the last episode Lindsay wins a summer school place at some nerdy thing (I forget what).
She’s not fussed about going (and it sounds awful) but Kim tells her it’s a great opportunity and “you get to leave. I don’t”. But Lindsay isn’t having that, telling Kim she can do whatever she wants.
The series ends with Lindsay apparently off to the nerd camp and it seems like that’s it for her and Kim.
But not so! Just before getting on the bus Lindsay looks pained and calls over to her mum “I’ll see you soon”. The bus pulls off but it looks like something might be happening.
And it does. She gets off the bus to find Kim waiting for what was a planned meet-up, with the two of them ditching everything to go and follow the Grateful Dead on tour.
It’s one of the most satisfying endings to a TV show I can remember. They probably all got butchered by a load of hippies but, at the point it cuts, with the two of them looking happy, heading into an exciting future, it’s brilliant.
It’s weird writing about something that happened 25 years ago as if it just happened, but it did for me.
I’d forgotten almost all of the show in the years since I’d seen it. I just knew I liked it and that loads of them had gone on to good things.
The freaks all change character slightly, while the geeks stay largely the same. But what makes the show is Lindsay and Kim’s friendship and how they get there.
It’s the struggle they both go through, the feeling each other out in the early stages. Then, as they get closer, we see the tension and push-and-pull (and the freedom to do so knowing it won’t change either of you) that makes friendship real.
There’s a really good look at their relationship here.
One person who didn’t go on to stardom is Stephen Lea Sheppard, who is an absolute scene-stealer as Harris. He did a couple of bits after this, including a non-speaking role in The IT Crowd as a calendar geek, but nothing to speak of. He’s ace here.