Freaks and Geeks: Setting the Stage

The opening scene of Freaks and Geeks establishes two things: first, the show takes place in Michigan in 1980. Second, we learn that this isn't the average show about teenagers. The first thing we see are a football player and his cheerleader girlfriend speaking in melodramatic trope while a sappy song plays in the background. But before the pair can kiss, the camera pans below the bleachers where we meet the freaks, a group of rock-and-roll-addicted burnouts who have long ago given up on their studies. As Led Zepplin plays in the background, we are introduced to Daniel, Ken, and Nick, three guys reputations as troublemakers and ne'er-do-wells. These are the people who have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from the mainstream high school social circles. Right after that, the song changes to Kenny Loggins' "I'm All Right", from Caddyshack, and we meet the geeks. Sam, Neil, and Bill are three guys who are obsessed with comedians, Star Wars, and, to an extent, gaining acceptance with the "cool kids" (this desire affects Sam and Neal, but Bill is pretty cool with who he is). These guys tend to get bullied, and right away, Sam is threatened by his nemesis. When Sam's sister Lindsay, who is both the focus of the show and a budding freak, comes to his rescue, she only makes things worse for her brother, because he had to be saved by a girl.

Thus begins one of the most realistic, funny, and tragic tales of high school woes that I've ever seen. On this show, the freaks don't always learn from the mistakes they make, and when they do, the lessons learned are not grand life lessons of the typical "very special episdoe". The geeks almost never get the girl in the end, and in the off-chance they do, they learn that there is a difference between the person they wanted and the person they got. Freaks and Geeks is about the small victories that most people had to make for themselves in the cutthroat society that is high school.

The series looks at why people acted the way they did in high school and why some stereotypes were wrong... and why others were right. Take Daniel, for example, the king of the freaks. When the series begins, he appears to be just a lazy pretty boy who chose to follow his desires to be a rock star by ignoring everything else. He can be smarmy and angry, but as the series progresses, his layers are stripped away to reveal a sad and lonely boy from a poor family that can barely make ends meet. It is true that he doesn't have a lot of intelligence, but he was also never encouraged the way people like Lindsay (who has an abundance of smarts) were. On the geek side, Neal is an annoying (in a good way for the audience) horndog who think he is 10 times cooler than he truly is. He is cynical and demeaning at times, but these are his responses to the world he has been exposed to. People don't treat him well, and he and his only two friends don't know why. His desire to be accepted stems from the anguish that comes from being forced outside, and his cynicism is a coping mechanism.

Is still find it amazing that I like this show so much, because, although I was neither a complete freak or complete geek in high school (I was closer to geek, but I had elements of both, and I like to think that I didn't truly conform to a single label), I can identify with a lot of what happened on this series. I guess I'm far enough removed from hell school... I mean high school (Buffy reference!) that I can laugh at the events of the series. And there is a lot to laugh at. But there is also a lot to cry about, and there are times when a single thing can induce both (I'm looking at you, Morty the dummy).

The Weir parents, Harold and Jean, add an adult perspective to the show. They comment on the changing times and the changes in their children. They are an interesting match; Harold is a hard-ass cynic who tries to scare his chilrden straight, while Jean is trying to hold onto the last remnants of the mother-child bond that her children are rejecting during their high school years. They are just as real as the teens on the show; they do not exist to hammer home a lesson every week, and they have their flaws and strengths.

For the most part, the lives of the freaks and the geeks take separate paths, converging through Sam and Lindsay at integral times. Therefore, I will do one post about the freaks and one about the geeks.

Up next: The path of Lindsay Weir...