Releve
We begin episode 8 of Tiny Pretty Things with Bette striking a deal with Officer Cruz. She’ll let the officer borrow her computer in exchange for not calling in the car accident. As they talk, Bette admits she was asleep the night Cassie died. At Matteo’s, she reveals the truth that actually she blacked out that night and is worried. He gives her solid words of advice though before they make love.
Meanwhile, Nabil confronts Cassie’s parents about their choice to stop life support for her. Nabil claims they don’t even know their daughter, which prompts them both to tell him to leave.
Back at the studio, Neveah learns that she may be pulled from the program after the Michi Beach incident. Desperate to get her own back, she heads to see a reporter and shows the recording she has from the beach. Unfortunately, what she has isn’t enough to incriminate. She needs a smoking gun and substantial evidence, something Neveah eventually agrees to do.
Neveah heads back and speaks to Shane, asking whether Dev could do something to help given he’s on the Board of Directors. Speaking of Directors, Travis goes completely off the handle and confronts June out in an alleyway and holds her up by the throat. Are there not cameras here?
Anyway, Travis promises that he won’t let her destroy what he’s built up. June runs all the way home and speaks to Neveah about the article, pleading with her not to let it be published.
At the studio, the kids have a photo shoot with Topher with the potential to be on promotional posters. June agrees to help Bette which Neveah takes offence to, telling her that Bette has “betrayed” them so many times. Oren meanwhile, starts to lose control after his shoot – but not before Nabil refuses to wear the grey hoody.
Bette confronts Oren that night and tells him to eat. He hasn’t been doing so and that’s partly the reason he nearly passed out at the studio. As they talk, Bette continues to feel rattled as she blames herself for what happened to Cassie that night.
Matteo shows up at the dorm though where she learns Bette was the one who locked her up on the roof and blamed it on Neveah. Well, this is a shocking turn of events I didn’t see coming! On the back of this, the two fall out again.
Oren catches up with Dev and confronts him over the situation with the girls in Michi Beach. Apparently all the directors are in on this given he seems to know what’s happening. Dev says nothing for now and walks away. However, it’s clear he’s thinking over his options.
At the hospital, Caleb arrives along with everyone else to pay their respects to Cassie. All of them hug it out together, seemingly forgetting the issues they’ve literally just been dealing with. Anyway, just as Cassie has the plug pulled, she miraculously starts breathing on her own. Everyone is happy apart from Bette who listens to music and miraculously remembers what happened to her that night.
It turns out she was with Delia and trying to make it back to the studio before curfew ended. She feeds this new information back to Cruz who just happens to be lurking around outside. She eventually heads in to see Katrina and Delia, asking where they were that night. Only, Delia claims not to be anywhere near Bette and was with her Mother the whole time. Something doesn’t add up here.
Back at the studio, Dev decides to help the kids with their Michi Beach situation after all. He’s learned that they keep their records in paper and apparently June had memorized some of the names – including numerous donations to an anonymous source. Could this be Monique?
As he shows them the ledger, Neveah snaps photos which she in turn hands to the reporter. “There’s your smoking gun,” She proclaims proudly.
Afterwards, Neveah confronts Monique who promises that she’ll be kicked out of ballet and never dance again. Ever the one to cover her own back and act selfishly, Neveah heads back to see the reporter and tells her to kill the story. The reporter refuses to do so though, telling her that she’s only reporting the truth.
This brings Neveah back to Oren whom she starts cozying up to and kissing. Anyway, Oren decides against sleeping with her as we finally get back to the Ripper gig in the studio. After dancing, the guys head outside and see that the two dancers chosen are Caleb and Bette.
Back at the hospital, Cassie wakes up.
The Episode Review
Some of these subplots are so half-baked and under-developed that they don’t make any sense The weird affairs and conflicts between characters are quickly resolved the same episode giving an air of vapidness and superficial drama.
This is only made worse by the “busywork” drama that completely negates some of the more interesting storylines this show could have been working with. What happened to Oren’s body image issues? What happened to Bette’s foot? And her drug addiction? After all the complaints about abuse, why is it acceptable for Topher to call the boys “fatsos” last episode? Surely Oren would have been triggered by this?
One of the biggest problems with this show though comes from Neveah. Her character has proven time and again that she acts selfishly and only looks out for herself.
She turned the car accident into a pity party, blaming herself, while she’s constantly getting involved in other people’s business. She also has zero chemistry with any of the boys she winds up dating across this season. Her weird fling with Nabil earlier on felt completely crowbarred in and now with Oren this pairing just does not work.
With 2 episodes to go and Cassie finally awake, maybe now we’ll learn what really happened that fateful night.
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Episode Rating
(2)
I agree about Neveah. She feels like a minor character at times with how irrelevant to the plot she sometimes is. I want to like her and sometimes I do, I really stood with her initially with all of the pain surrounding her mom. I just wish her story was more fleshed out and made a bit more sense. Like the brother being paralyzed should have been related to the abuse he suffered from the BF rather than the cops. I get it was probably to rationalize Neveah’s dislike if cops but…maybe the dislike could have come from how the cops handled things at the scene or something? I feel like her obsession with doing what’s right can be painfully forced and it keeps you from rooting for her. I also actually liked her with Nabil initially. I think there was something there but her thing with Oren came out of nowhere. I could have seen her and Nabil being more focal as a relationship that can’t happen because they are both hung up. Her thing with Oren just feels like they thought she had to be with a guy and figured she talks to him unlike Caleb and he is into girls unlike Caleb. Plus they are partners so there has to be romantic tension…right? Wrong.