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Grand Army season 1, episode 2 recap – what happened in “See Me”?

This recap of Netflix’s Grand Army season 1, episode 2, “See Me” contains significant spoilers.

We recapped the entire series — check out the archive.

The opening

The start of episode 2 shows that Joey is quite the activist and she has strong views that she wants to spread to the school.

Joey gets ready for the day and receives texts from Tim talking about “blowing up the patriarchy”. She’s ready to show her body and wear revealing clothes to Ms Wilder who accused her of dressing inappropriately in the premiere episode. Joey and her father have a brief argument because the father calls terrorists “These people” while watching the news.

The consequences of the bombing continue to impact Sid — he’s irked by stereotypes and racial profiling.

Meanwhile, Sid is anxious about going to school. On the subway with his sister Meera, Sid feels everyone is looking at him due to the terrorist attack. On the way into school, Owen and Jay are playing jazz and the police break it up. Sid is still extremely paranoid around authorities.

Free the nipple

Leila asks Rachel why she isn’t wearing a bra. Joey then walks in with a top saying “Free The Nipple”. The plan is to keep the tops covered up until after the quiz. They are trying to prove a point. George then walks up to Leila and she feels awkward after they hooked up. He asks if they can hang out later and then asks if she’s going to burn her bra. Rachel is disappointed that Leila’s now going to join Joey’s cause just because of George.

I think Rachel is implying that Leila’s character is compromising herself in order to have an experience with a boy at school — at this point, she could have a point.

Giving the money back

In class, Jayson and Owen give Dom her money back that they lost. They ask her for a favor but she isn’t interested in small talk. Sid speaks to a teacher about an essay he wrote, presumably an application for college. She tells him that it’s “just fine” and she recommends that he gets an outside peer perspective to brainstorm on his essay.

Getting under Ms. Wilder’s skin

And here is another pivotal moment for  Grand Army  that seems to come thick and fast.

In class, Joey takes off her coat and reveals her top to Ms. Wilder who doesn’t react initially. Joey is disappointed that she doesn’t react straight away — she pours water over her white top and Ms. Wilder loses it and asks her to step out because it’s offensive that she’s dressed as a “hooker” and that she’s essentially selling herself.

This went from 0 to 100 really quickly.

Making a stand with her activism

And Joey’s activism is all systems go in the second chapter as she makes a stand and brings some important themes to the series that are provocative.

Joey goes to the principal’s office and explains what happened. The principal says it’s a dress code violation. Joey says it is not a violation and it’s a political movement. The teacher opens the door as he feels uncomfortable being in the same room as Joey with a see-through top soaked in water. Joey tries to show the double standard when her male friends walk in with the same top — her friends walk through the door. She then tells him how he’s regulating her body but not theirs. She also says that there are hundreds of girls today not wearing bras and gives him a list of names who will come to speak to him and he will also have to send them home — she notes that there isn’t a code that they need to wear bras. The principal sends her back to class. Joey tells the principal that Ms. Wilder called her a prostitute and wants an apology. Ms. Wilder walks in and apologizes.

Joey is celebrated by all the dance girls for what she did. Tim comes to see her and tells her that she inspires him. The pair kiss.

Meeting a student for another perspective

We learn what is truly conflicting Sid’s mind in  Grand Army  season 1, episode 2.

Sid meets another student named Victor about his application. He wants to talk about the bomber and perceptions of how people see him. The student thinks it’s a solid idea. Sid is consumed by the boy’s features. Sid’s girlfriend Flora walks in and she asks if he cured his boyfriend. When Sid gets home, he masturbates to men on his laptop.

Not only is Sid battling with racial profiling post a bombing, but also his sexuality as well.

An awkward hookup

George and Leila hook up. When she touches him sexually it hurts him so George sorts himself out and it’s awkward. He ejaculates over her clothes and then sits down as she stands there awkwardly before watching a video with him. George then talks about her dark nipples and he says he likes it. Leila then talks about how she’s half Jewish but he says she’s not technically part of the tribe. She then imagines a cartoon again where George is on Instagram looking at Joey and “Free The Nipple”; she forces George to eat her clit while Zombie Joey tells her to get it.

While the scene shows how naive Leila is being with George (not realizing she’s being used) it also shows George’s maturity, especially when he markedly talks about her dark nipples like it’s something alien to him.

Dom goes out with her mother shopping but it gets awkward as she cannot pay for everything. John comes over as he works there and asks for an employee discount to help her out. Dom is embarrassed when John introduces himself to her mother.

What did you do for her?

Leila tells Joey that what she did was cool. George quickly brushes Leila off and says he will see her later. Leila video calls her friend and expresses how hooking up with George was fun. George tells Joey that Leila couldn’t make him cum — Joey asks if George did anything for her; this was a cool moment with Joey reminding George that pleasure works both ways.

Joey heads home and invites George. She checks out her Instagram and sees how her cause has trended at school. She takes a photo of her pierced nipple and sends it to a group.

Owen and Jay are in trouble because of the lockdown prank that caused Dom to lose money. Dom doesn’t want them to get into trouble but Jay gets a suspension for 7 days. Owen gets a superintendent’s suspension which will mean a hearing as well. A tear runs down Owen’s face. His dreams as a musician could be shattered in this one moment. Joey tells Dom that she feels bad.

The episode ends with the text:

“This isn’t a cry for attention this is about your entitlement”.

With the story now bedded in, Grand Army season 1, episode 2 presents what each character is passionate about with trouble looming ahead as their personal issues begin to surface.

Faculty archives

• Anna asks Joey what her thing is with Tim but Joey brushes it off. Joey then gets her nipple pierced.

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‘Grand Army’ recap: Episode 4, ‘Safety On’

By mads lennon | oct 17, 2020.

Traumatized, Joey spirals. Sid opens up in his Harvard essay. And a health crisis puts more pressure on Dom in Grand Army Episode 4.

Grand Army Episode 4, “Safety On,” begins with Joey receiving a text from Anna about the previous night. “It just feels f—-d up cause we had that whole conversation. How’s Tim not gonna feel s—-y?”

At the party, Joey didn’t tell Anna what happened, but Anna did see the videos George and Luke took of her kissing them since they were posted to social media.

Joey hasn’t left her bed since getting home. Her mom assumes she’s just hungover. Joey wavers between saying something more honest to Tim or just glazing over the previous night’s events with a joke. She opts for a joke.

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Elsewhere in Brooklyn, Dom attends a church event with her mom and sister. Both women are upset with Dom for skipping out on babysitting when she was spending time with John. Dom’s sister says she felt mortified having to search for last-minute childcare frantically, but Dom points out that they’re not her kids.

The church event isn’t all bad, as Dom’s pastor tells Dom he has an incredible opportunity for her to get an internship with a group called Sisters Thrive.

The organization trains young women of color who plan to pursue a career in psychology. We know that’s Dom’s dream career path, so she’s obviously very interested.

Grand Army Episode 4 recap: Joey starts to spiral downward.

In the next act of the episode, we slowly traverse through each day of the week, focusing on Joey and her continued unraveling. On Monday, she struggles to get back to normal with her group of friends and gets the sense that everyone in the school is talking about her and whispering behind her back.

She’s not necessarily wrong, Leila and Rachel don’t hesitate to s–t-shame her, and Grace is now livid with Joey for her apparent involvement with George. No one knows the truth about that night. Even Joey is struggling to come to grips with what happened. By Tuesday, it becomes more apparent that everyone does know what happened, or at least some distorted version of it.

During a game of “Never Have I Ever,” Anna tries to call Joey out, saying, “Never have I ever had an orgy with my friends.” It’s a hit below the belt, but Joey pretends to go along with it. Things worsen for her during dance practice when Grace belittles her, and Dom accidentally lobs a basketball at the back of Joey’s head.

The basketball strike was clearly an accident, but considering the amount of stress Joey is under, it’s not that surprising that she thinks Dom was acting intentionally. Things get heated between the two teens until the basketball coach steps in to break it up. Joey runs to the bathroom, and Dom follows her, wanting to settle things.

By the time she finds Joey cowering in a bathroom stall, she’s stunned to find her standing above a toilet with her legs, covered in bruises, completely visible. Dom tries to help her, but Joey forces her out.

We finally get an update on Jay and his situation regarding his school punishment. Tension is heavy at home, where his dad and grandfather disagree on the school’s handling of matters. Jay’s dad thinks the consequences are fair, while his grandad thinks they need to hire a lawyer. It’s even worse for Owen, who Jay hasn’t seen or heard from since that fateful day in the principal’s office. His phone has been disconnected, and his spot on the school band has already been filled.

Joey’s downward spiral continues in English class the next day when the class begins discussing The Great Gatsby . Tim chimes in to interpret the novel, triggering Joey to go on an impassioned rant about racism, sexism, and mansplaining. All the while, she can’t stop tearing out her hair, and Tim notices a bald patch on her head. She starts crying in class and eventually excuses herself to the bathroom, where she meets with Luke to get some sleeping pills.

Grand Army Episode 4 recap: Sid meets his Grindr hookup.

For a main character, Sid gets surprisingly little screentime. His time in this episode is as brief as in previous episodes. Sid meets with his therapist about his updated essay, and she suggests therapy. Sid blows her off and decides to hook up with that guy from Grindr instead.

Later, Sid is forced to deal with the possible ramifications of the random hookup: an STD. He tries to research orally-transmitted STDs when he runs into Victor, who wonders why Sid never reached out about his essay. At that moment, George shows up (I’m so sick of this guy!) to make some stupid homophobic comments toward Victor. Sid gets distracted by his sister, who seems to be cozying up to another swim team member.

In the auditorium, Leila finally gets her chance to audition for Meera’s rendition of The Vagina Monologues . George and Joey happen to notice her performance, and George does his best to mess her up. Meera kicks him out, but Leila has already fumbled. George does try to apologize to her after, but Leila blows him off. It seems like her chances of getting a part in the play are officially zero, except the co-director, Omar (Zac Kara), tells her he’ll try to put in a good word for her.

Grand Army Episode 4 recap: Dom and John go on another date.

Poor Dom. She struggles to find a moment of privacy in her crowded apartment to do homework when she gets a call from John. Before they can really start a conversation, Dom’s niece interrupts her to tell her the toilet overflowed, and the dirty water got on her homework. Mortified that John heard the entire exchange, she hangs up to deal with the situation at hand.

Later, the entire school is forced to attend an assembly with the NYPD in light of the recent Grand Army Plaza bombing. The cops talk about how, often, the perpetrators of violent crimes are people you know personally. Joey pops another sleeping pill and reacts visibly to Luke, trying to inch closer and Tim asking her if she’s okay.

Also, during the assembly, John asks Dom for another date. Seconds before, she gets a text that her sister hurt her back, but Dom decides to blow her off to hang out with John and accepts his invitation. Jay takes the opportunity to start a petition to help get Owen back to school.

Ultimately, the assembly and the surrounding discussion is too much for Joey, so she runs out of the room, followed by Anna. Anna tries to comfort Joey and apologizes for the “Never Have I Ever” comment, but she still doesn’t know what really happened. Seeing Joey upset, Dom follows them to check on her and see if her legs are okay, but Anna basically tells her to get lost.

Jay finally decides to go to Owen’s house to see if he can figure out what’s going on, but Owen’s mom won’t let him in. They’re clearly struggling to handle the suspension.

Grand Army Episode 4 recap: Joey finally accepts what happened and tells her mom.

At least Dom and John’s date goes well. John’s mom is lovely and seems to genuinely like Dom. She says she should be proud of herself for being the first person in her family to go to college. After dinner, John and Dom share their first kiss! When Dom returns home, her night takes a swift downturn.

Because of her sister’s back injury, she’s lost her job. Considering how much their family is already struggling, the pressure will only get more intense for Dom and could disrupt her career plans.

In the final moments of the episode, Joey finally tells her mom what happened while sobbing in her lap. Her younger sister finds her torn panties, and it seems to trigger Joey and make her realize what really happened.

“They raped me, Mom.”

She names George and devolves further into tears as her mother struggles to comfort her.

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Let us know your thoughts and opinions on Grand Army Episode 4 in the comments below.

All nine episodes of  Grand Army  Season 1 are now streaming on Netflix.

The Scarlet

Living Arts

Grand Army: A Review

Maxine Como  , Scarlet Staff November 6, 2020

Grand Army is the latest teen drama put out by Netflix. It follows the journey of five students in the fictional Grand Army High School in Brooklyn, New York. The show tackles issues like the school-to-prison pipeline, sexual assault, homophobia, xenophobia, slut-shaming, poverty, mental health, and Black Lives Matter, perhaps in an overambitious sense. However, the creators of the show do an excellent job of portraying modern teenagers. Unlike most television, the actors playing teens are actual teenagers from the Greater NY area. This helps the show’s authenticity in portraying what it’s like to be a NYC teen.

High school applications in New York City are unique from everywhere else in the country. For many students, they are more complicated and confusing than college applications. New York City students have the option of applying to any public school in the city, regardless of distance. Schools fall into three different categories; specialized schools, performing arts schools, and non-specialized schools. In each category, applicants carefully rank where they apply. Requirements are different for every school; specialized high schools require students to score well on the Specialized High School Admissions Test or SHSAT, known affectionately by students as “SHATS”.

The test is designed to test students’ readiness for high school with topics like grammar, revising sentences, algebra, and geometry. Often, these subjects aren’t covered in middle school, making it nearly impossible to score well on the SHSAT without a tutor or prep class to help students prepare. 

The SHSAT has been accused of being classist and racist as many demand for it to be replaced by a fairer system. One of the most competitive and well-known specialized high schools in New York City is Stuyvesant High School. Stuyvesant made headlines last year when it was brought to light that out of the nearly 900 seats available, only 7 black students were offered. 

The fictional Grand Army school is meant to represent a school like Stuyvesant High School, where students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds are given a clear advantage to admittance; encompassed by the larger income disparity in NYC. Producers of the show used Brooklyn Technical High School, another specialized high school as a model.

Grand Army is racially segregated in several ways, not unlike many public high schools in NYC. The basketball teams are almost entirely composed of black students while the dance team is mostly white. Black students fall victim to the school-to-prison pipeline, despite their talent and academic success. And in true NYC public high school fashion, the administration fails to address any of it.

Specialized high schools often also come with a higher degree of competition when it comes to college applications. The pressure of admission to an ivy league university or highly-ranked university is almost tangible in the halls of one of the eight specialized high schools. Beginning in freshman year, all sights are set on college as students begin building an impressive portfolio of activities. In order to look like a well-rounded student to colleges, one must be involved in several clubs, show leadership qualities, have good grades, and have productive summers full of internships, jobs, and volunteering.

Grand Army brings the tension of college apps to the forefront. One of the main characters, Siddhartha, known by his peers as Sid, portrays the perfect student and athlete with his heart set on Harvard. When he is deferred by his dream school, his guidance counselor advises that he write a letter to the admissions board at Harvard to reconsider his application. Burdened with the stress of writing the perfect letter, Sid discloses in his essay that he is gay, although he is yet to come out. The letter is later exposed to the entire school and later Sid’s very traditional family. 

While this is a dramatization, it reveals the dark truth behind college essays.The writing section is designed for colleges to get to know more about the applicant beyond their stats. Students writing their personal statements often feel the need to expose their trauma or secrets to gain admission to college. Colleges want their applicants to get personal in their writing, but fitting your childhood trauma or sadness for a loved one passing or experiences with bullying into 650 words isn’t productive. To the teenager who has just poured out their heart into an essay, maybe even written about something they haven’t told anyone like Sid, a rejection or deferral means that it wasn’t enough.

Colleges have never shied away from telling applicants where they fall short academically, rightfully so as this is part of the application process. However, as Grand Army has skillfully portrayed, Colleges have expanded their mandate to determine whether applicants are interesting or even “human” enough to be considered to attend. 

The pressure that comes with specialized high school is often placed on students of color like Sid. Grand Army tends to focus on the social lives of its white characters, like main character Joey and her struggles with slut-shaming and sexual assault. But the students of color at Grand Army all seem to have their own academic struggle or outside experience that affects their school life. This juxtaposition highlights the segregation within the student body. In real life, students of color are most at risk of failing classes, dropping out, and ending up in prison. Instead of providing support systems for students, rules of “zero tolerance” are in place that guarantee that one slip up can ruin a student’s entire academic career. The pressure is mainly placed on impoverished students who can’t throw away a chance at improving their situation. 

Grand Army depicts a real specialized high school in all its glory and dysfunction, which makes for great television. It stands apart from most other teen shows that take place in a high school because of its realisticness. Although some of the plot comes across as crowded and heavy-handed, the show is above average for a teen show, which by nature tend to be awkward and out-of-touch.

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Isabella Goldmints ~ Nov 9, 2020 at 1:56 pm

It’s an interesting review by the author who doesn’t know what she is talking about. Students in specialized high schools in NYC are overwhelmingly poor and Asian (over half live in poverty and Stuyvesant high school is 19% white, 75% Asian). So I guess the term “classist” with respect to SHSAT refers to poor students and the term “racist” means favoring Asian students. Specialized high schools have their own problems, but classism and racism are not even close to top ten.

Larry Cary ~ Nov 6, 2020 at 7:56 am

Grand Army’s creators are entitled to make up facts about their school because it is fictional. But no one is entitled to make up facts about New York City’s specialized high schools and unfortunately your review does. I head the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation. Tech, with 6,000 students, is the largest high school in the country. Eighty percent of its students are minority. Two thirds of its students qualify for free or reduced price lunch, the standard in educational circles for measuring poverty. Most students are the children of immigrant families, or immigrants themselves, and at home do not speak English.

The eight test-in specialized high schools have outstanding outcomes. All eight are ranked by US News among the top 10 schools in New York State. They are ranked among the top 100 out of 25,000 high schools in the nation. Virtually every student graduates fully college-ready. Virtually all the students graduate and go on to college Two-thirds of the city’s public high school students attending Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are graduates of Tech, Stuyvesant, and Bronx Science, the big three test-in schools. Fourteen graduates of these three schools are recipients of the Nobel Prize, more than most nations.

By comparison, less than half of New York City’s public-school students score proficient or above on state annual assessment tests for math and language arts. Many graduate unprepared for college-level work. At City University’s community colleges, 75 percent of the students, almost all NYC public-school graduates, take at least one remedial course, and some take three.

For Black students in NYC, the situation is terrible. The longer they are in the city’s schools, the more their performance on the math assessment test declines. In third grade, about 12 percent of Black students score above proficient. By eighth grade, only 7.7 percent are scoring as high.

About 25 percent of NYC’s public school students never graduate high school.

The racial disparity of the test’s results is not due to the test being racist as some allege. it is due to the city’s educational system being racist and not giving Black and Latino children the tools they need to perform well on the test and in life. When the schools in these communities were better, for twenty years most of the students at Tech were Black and Latino, everyone of them having taken the test to be admitted. We advocate for improving these schools by offering Gifted and Talented classes in the elementary schools and enhanced learning opportunities in the middle schools.

Its nice to watch TV and escape into some fictional world. But reality is very different from what Grand Army portrays.

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The Standard

‘Grand Army’ reflects modern issues

I wasn’t expecting much when I first clicked on one of Netflix’s newest teen dramas “Grand Army.” However, after finishing the series, I can whole-heartedly say that it is a refreshing, realistic depiction of teenage life in this day and age. 

The show follows the lives of five very different teenagers, all of whom attend Grand Army High School in New York City. The show explores themes relating to racism, sexual assault, poverty and identity through these teenagers’ lives. 

The show begins with an immediate wave of drama and emotion: a terrorist attack right outside of Grand Army High School. This attack, despite not directly harming any of the students, serves as a catalyst for many of the following events that end up affecting the main characters. 

While all of the students are crammed in the stairwells as their school goes into lockdown after the initial explosion, two boys, Jayson and Owen, steal their friend Dom’s wallet as a joke. By accident, the two boys end up losing the wallet after throwing it down the stairs, resulting in both of them receiving severe punishments, presumably because both of them are Black. 

The loss of the wallet impacts its owner as she had needed the money to support her family, who are constantly struggling to make ends meet. The show explores Dom’s life as a student and friend, but also as a young person who is faced with tough decisions, and the ways in which those facets of her life collide. 

Dom’s struggle is very real and is one faced by many young people across the world. However, despite the fact that her financial situation greatly impacts her life, the show depicts Dom as more than a token poor or Black character. 

Aside from her responsibilities to her family, the show explores the much less dramatic sides of her life. One of these aspects is her relationship with one of the school’s basketball players John Ellis as well as her journey as an aspiring psychologist. 

I appreciated the fact that “Grand Army” was able to focus on the more light-hearted aspects of high school, such as crushes, romance and popularity, while still instilling a certain and almost painful level of reality throughout the season. 

This perfect blend of innocence and reality is best seen through the life of Leila Kwan Zimmer, a high school freshman who was adopted from China by white Jewish parents. Leila is shown to be at a turning point in her life, where she struggles to understand where exactly she fits in, whether that be racially, sexually, religiously or in terms of popularity. 

In Leila’s storyline, the show incorporates plot lines that are often seen in shows targeted at younger audiences, such as signing up for the school play and having fights with her best friend over issues related to popularity. However, Leila is not just a Disney Channel character cut-out; in an attempt to become more popular she hooks up with upperclassmen, while also undergoing an identity crisis which leaves her feeling lost and alone for much of the season. 

Despite the fact that “Grand Army” did an incredible job at shedding some light on Leila’s struggles as someone who is trans-racially adopted, I felt that the show still fell short in regards to portraying the significance of her story in comparison to the stories of the other characters. Yes, Leila struggles with her identity, but why is that important? That is a question which the first season of “Grand Army” did not answer. 

The show explores themes relating to racism, sexual assault, poverty and identity through these teenagers’ lives. 

Though it fell short in Leila’s storyline, the show did an excellent job at portraying Sid, an Indian-American athlete in the midst of writing his college essay. Through writing this essay, Sid reckons with his racial, academic, athletic and sexual identity. 

As an Indian male, the terrorist attack at the beginning of the episode made him more self-conscious about his race and the way in which others view him in a world where people who look like him are constantly represented as terrorists. 

As a South-Asian and a Muslim who feels similar fear and self-consciousness due to the way people who look like me are portrayed in the media, I greatly appreciated the representation that was offered by Sid’s role in the show. 

Last, but certainly not least, the fifth main character in “Grand Army” is Joey Del Marco. Joey is initially portrayed as popular and well-liked by her friends. However, despite having seemingly good intentions, such as the way she went to school braless as a way to support the “Free the Nipple” movement or the way in which she kneeled at a school basketball game to be an “ally,” her actions are often made without much thought and tend to hurt the people around her. 

However, her carefree attitude is cut down when she experiences a deeply traumatic event at the hands of people she was close with, leaving her feeling used and to some degree responsible for her experience. 

Despite feeling little sympathy and connection to Joey at the start of the series, I ended the show feeling that her storyline was one of the most emotion-evoking and developed out of all of the characters within the show. 

Like all of the characters’ journeys throughout the season, Joey’s trauma and recovery is so common in today’s society, especially in today’s teengers, yet it is sadly seldom discussed or represented as realistically and respectfully as “Grand Army” does. 

It is this level of integrity and care poured into the show that makes it so lifelike and relevant to this day and age. “Grand Army” presents issues which teenagers can easily relate to in a way that often upholds their importance and examines the ways in which these issues play a role in the lives of teenagers today.

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Grand Army Ending, Explained

Created by Katie Cappiello, ‘Netflix’s teen drama series ‘Grand Army’ is partially based on her critically acclaimed work ‘Slut: The Play’. The show is predominantly set in and around the fictional Grand Army High School, named after the historic Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York. Although it has a myriad of characters, ‘Grand Army’ focuses on five individuals who hail from diverse financial and cultural backgrounds and have vastly different personalities. The show makes a home in the same space of social consciousness as ‘Degrassi: The Next Generation’, exploring it through the developing perspective of adolescence.

Joey Del Marco (Odessa A’zion) is a free-spirited and outspoken young feminist from Stuyvesant Town. Dominique Pierre (Odley Jean) aspires to be a therapist and hails from an impoverished Haitian immigrant family living in East New York. Siddhartha Pakam (Amir Bageria) is a second-generation Hindu Indian from Jackson Heights. Both an accomplished athlete and a brilliant student, he is trying to enroll at Harvard University. Jayson Jackson (Maliq Johnson) is a prodigious saxophone player from Spanish Harlem. Leila Kwan Zimmer (Amalia Yoo) is the adopted racially Chinese daughter of a white Jewish couple residing in the Upper West Side. SPOILERS AHEAD!

Grand Army Recap

The series starts with a terrorist attack at the Plaza. Black smoke is seen rising from the windows of the Grand Army. The teachers hoard the students in classrooms and on the stairs as they wait for the threat to pass. With such a solemn opening, ‘Grand Army’ basically underscores its dramatic aspirations. The five main characters serve as different focal points of the show. Each of them has their own story, which is populated by a separate set of characters. Often time, these stories interact, maintaining a symbiotic existence.

Zoey treads a thin line between the disobedience stemming from her feminism and immature reactionary antics. Like the other four main characters, her brilliance and uniqueness set her apart in the crowd of students at the Grand Army. She fiercely defends her sexual agency when a boy she likes, Tim Delaney, questions her closeness with two of their mutual friends. She is clearly the leader of their clique, also including Tim’s sister Anna, Luke Friedman, and George Wright. She is robbed of that very sense of agency and fearlessness when Luke and George rape her in a cab with Tim also present there. Broken and betrayed, she feels truly defeated when the three boys are set free because of a lack of evidence.

Dom is also the leader of her own group. Dom is a high-achieving daughter of a Haitian single mother. She has been forced to grow up pretty quickly due to her family’s financial situation. Balancing her budding hair product business with school, basketball practice, and familial responsibilities, she finds herself quickly overwhelmed. There is a new romance in her life, in the shape of young activist John Ellis, but before it gets any serious, her mother asks her to marry one of her acquaintances so he can stay in the US. In exchange, the family will receive $10,000. Reluctantly, Dom agrees to do it.

Sid endures casual racism and sexism aimed toward him and his sister Meera (Ashley Ganger) from fellow students who are supposed to be his friends. He more or less shrugs off all the insults, believing reaction will only encourage them. He is desperately trying to hide the fact that he is gay not only from his traditional Indian parents but also from his peers. When the secret finally gets out. Sid lashes out at everyone, including the teacher, who is helping him with the Harvard application. After he finally finds out who leaked the information, it leads to a violent altercation, which leaves his nose broken.

Jayson and his friend and saxophone competitor Owen (Jaden Jordan) get into serious trouble after trying to prank Dom during the bomb threat, resulting in the loss of about $200 from her purse. Although they manage to raise the money by performing in the subway and give it back to her, it is apparently not enough. They are both temporarily suspended from Grand Army, with Owen receiving a much harsher punishment than Jayson. Afterward, Jayson is asked to fill the slot in a performance that was meant for Owen. Guilt-ridden and ashamed, Jayson becomes involved in the student movement at the school.

Leila’s character trajectory is vastly different from those of the rest of the main characters. Being adopted by Jewish American parents, she has little to no connection to her native land. She often gets bullied by other Chinese girls at her school for not knowing Mandarin. Leila’s sole outlet seems to be the violent and graphic comic-book style drawing that she does.

Grand Army Ending

One running subplot in the series is the contention between her and Zoey, although it changes to mutual appreciation and understanding by the end of the season. Grand Army seems to have a unique distinction of being a school that is both public and prestigious. Many teachers seem to genuinely care for their students, although they are not above their individual prejudices. All of the five protagonists undergo radical changes throughout the season and emerge as more confident and prouder versions of themselves.

After Joey enrolls in a Catholic school, she meets Sylvie, also a rape survivor. Sylvie admits that she has never spoken to anyone before about her rape, and when Joey took her rapists to court, she thought it was incredibly admirable. This encounter gives Joey enough courage to meet the three boys and Anna. George and Luke still claim that it was consensual. However, after Joey leaves, Tim confronts them with his recollection of the evening. To regain a sense of control, Joey goes back to the dance class. Through rhythmic and purposeful movements, she begins her process of healing.

During her interview for a high-school internship, Dom passionately articulates the need for black mental health workers in black communities and lands the job. Her mother realizes what a folly it was to place the entire family’s responsibility on her young shoulders and calls off the marriage of convenience. With the help of friends, Dom asks John to the prom.

While the outing took the choice away from him, it ultimately proves to be a good thing for Sid. At the end of the season, he has been accepted into Harvard and has begun a relationship with Victor (August Blanco Rosenstein). His father sends him a congratulatory message for his admission, indicating that his conservation Hindu family is at least willing to talk to him. The first step is always the most important.

Despite all their attempts, the student movement doesn’t achieve much, and Owen is still suspended from Grand Army. On the day of the performance, Jayson uses the biggest stage allocated to him to make a statement. In the presence of his family and hundreds of others, he puts his saxophone down and places a pair of black tapes over his mouth, symbolically protesting against the school administration and society at large for the oppressive and derogatory treatment of the students of color.

At the start of each episode, an email is shown to be composed that has distinctive white ultra-right-wing undertones. It declares that there will be an attack on the school. In Episode 9, titled ‘Freedom,’ Leila is revealed to be its writer. She sets it to be delivered to the principal when the student demonstration at the school is in full swing. She gleefully laughs as the security tries to escort the students to safety, reveling in the pandemonium she has caused. As with the other four principal characters, Leila breaks the proverbial shackles and finds her own path to freedom and agency, even if it’s darker and more sinister than others.

Read More:  Where Was Grand Army Filmed?

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'Grand Army': Breakout Performances In A Depressing High School Tale

Aisha Harris

Dominique (Odley Jean) is one of several high school students in Netflix's sprawling, ambitious Grand Army. Jaspar Savage/Netflix hide caption

Dominique (Odley Jean) is one of several high school students in Netflix's sprawling, ambitious Grand Army.

The opening credits sequence of Netflix's latest teen melodrama Grand Army is brief, but a perfect distillation of the show's modus operandi. During a montage depicting various young characters' faces, a moody, pulsating thump accompanies a siren's wail. From episode to episode, a different set of phrases flashes across the screen; in the second episode, those phrases are "F—k the f—ing patriarchy," "I'm scared" and "zero tolerance." Grand Army , it says in just a few seconds, is about existential fear in the face of institutional oppression.

It is about this moment , people!

Those three sentiments are just a small sampling of all the themes and hot-button topics this sprawling series, about an eclectic bunch of students at a fictional public high school in Brooklyn, attempts to cover over nine hour-long episodes: The school-to-prison pipeline. Transracial adoption. Sexual assault. Homophobia. Xenophobia. Slut-shaming. Poverty and unemployment. Mental health. Black Lives Matter. Microaggressions. If you can hashtag it, it's probably playing out in some form among the kids of Grand Army High.

Grand Army is loosely based on playwright and teacher Katie Cappiello's 2013 play SLUT , which borrowed from her students' personal experiences to create the story of Joey, a 16-year-old girl who is sexually assaulted by her male friends. In the Netflix version, Cappiello and her writers room expand beyond Joey (played here by Odessa A'zion) to include a host of other characters whose narratives occasionally intersect with hers: Dominique (Odley Jean), an ambitious student-athlete whose family leans on her for financial support and caretaking duties; Siddhartha (Amir Bageria), a senior on the swim team struggling with his college essay and questioning his sexuality; Leila (Amalia Yoo), an overeager freshman who craves attention from the older boys while harboring intense teenage angst; and Jayson (Maliq Johnson), a talented saxophone player who, along with his best friend, lands in serious trouble at school for a dumb prank.

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The show wastes no time dropping the viewer into a morose pit of each characters' anxieties, as a bombing nearby sends the school into lockdown in the first episode. As soon as it's revealed that the bomber was Muslim, for instance, Siddhartha, a first-generation Indian American, becomes understandably concerned about being racially profiled. Elsewhere, Joey's teacher harshly reprimands her for finding "any excuse to put your body on display" and insists she cover up her legs. (Joey is wearing gym shorts, because she was in gym class when the attack happened.)

Meanwhile, members of the boys' swim team circulate a misogynist list rating some of their female classmates, and Leila, who was adopted from China by white Jewish parents, is proud to learn she's on it, under the name "JAP." (It's unclear if this is meant to stand for Jewish American Princess, the derogatory term for people of Japanese descent, or both.)

And so on. Not unlike HBO's Euphoria , Grand Army 's vision of what it means to be a kid in the (pre-COVID) present day is painfully bleak. Everyone is weighted down by a capital-A albatross that is inextricably tied to their most discriminated-against identity, and more often than not, that becomes their defining characteristic in the most obvious and unimaginative of ways.

That's part of the conundrum of Grand Army . While its ambition in tackling varying perspectives is admirable, it frequently resembles the experience of being deeply entrenched in the exhausting realm of Twitter, where salient points can be made and "liked" — and even a smartly detailed Twitter thread doesn't qualify as a substitution for a more expansive essay. With a couple of notable exceptions, the majority of the characters feel as though they were conceived as avatars through which to address an Important Social Issue first, and as fleshed-out human beings second.

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Joey is one such exception. Despite having a storyline that feels somewhat predictable amidst the many recent films and TV shows dealing with sexual assault, A'zion infuses the outspoken, boisterous Joey with cutting specificity, from her punkish attitude (she's a Bikini Kill fan) to the expressive, lithe way she carries herself.

Dominique's narrative is the unquestionable highlight, turning what at first seems to be hovering dangerously close in proximity to poverty porn into a surprisingly nuanced take on black girlhood and its joys as well as its trappings. Her socioeconomic struggles at home are in some ways extreme in comparison to her classmates, yet she nonetheless has a strong network of emotional support all around her, both at school and home. Jean's performance finds different shades and strokes in all of Dominique's highs and lows, and one scene in particular, late in the series, in which she describes her professional and personal dreams, is sobering and affecting.

It's worth noting that last month, writer Ming Peiffer alleged on Twitter that she and two other writers on the show quit because of racist mistreatment by Cappiello and concerns about the script's depictions of its non-white characters. (Peiffer is credited as a co-writer on episode eight.) While more details have yet to emerge around these claims, it's difficult to recommend Grand Army for this reason, even as all of the performances from this compelling cast of newcomers rise above the mixed-bag of material. How to reconcile what might have happened behind the scenes when it's so directly in opposition to the project's proudly proclaimed message of progressive ideas and empowerment?

I come down on it this way: Your mileage may vary. If gritty YA shows that proudly cling to a " dysfunction junction " premise are generally your jam, it's probably worth giving it a try. There will also likely be viewers who find value and catharsis in some of the stories, and that's not to be discounted. For everyone else, Grand Army may prove too stilted, too bluntly rendered — the manifestation of fatiguing social media discourse rendered in dramatic form.

• katie cappiello

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Watch Netflix's Next '13 Reasons Why' With Us

R29 binge club: netflix’s grand army recaps, episode 1: "brooklyn, 2020", episode 2: see me, episode 3: relationship goals, episode 4: safety on, episode 5: valentine’s day, episode 6: superman this s**t, episode 7: making moves, episode 8: spirit day, episode 9: freedom, more from tv, r29 original series.

• Season 1 Characters

Victor Borin

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• 1.1 Biography
• 2.1 Season 1
• 3 Appearances
• 5 References

History [ ]

Biography [ ], throughout the series [ ], season 1 [ ].

Victor and Sid develop a friendship after Sid's college counselor recommends him to help make Sid's college essay more personal. Victor and Sid go out for coffee where he helps Sid with his essay.

Victor and Sid are working on a science project which involves testing stimulus and reactions. They test each other’s reflexes and their responses to stimuli. Sid gets a boner which makes everything awkward. Later, Victor decides to try out being the test subject and tells Sid about his experience coming out as bisexual.

Appearances [ ]

• Valentine's Day
• Superman This S**t
• Making Moves

Gallery [ ]

References [ ].

• 1 Joey Del Marco
• 2 George Wright
• 3 Siddhartha Pakam

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Grand Army Attempts a Prestige Degrassi for Gen Z

By Sonia Saraiya

The first thing that happens in Grand Army is a terrorist attack. I would not call this a good storytelling decision, but there it is: an Arab-American suicide bomber, killing four and wounding 19 on a January day in Brooklyn. Grand Army High School is a fictional institution, both the largest public high school in New York City and also one of the most prestigious. (It seems to be loosely based on Brooklyn Technical High School, which shares those qualities.)

The entrance to Prospect Park is not much of a target for a terrorist, especially on a freezing January morning. The guy doesn’t even manage to accomplish any damage to the various monuments in the surrounding area, including the prominent arch that gives the high school its name. Indeed, the terrorist attack has minimal bearing on the plot that follows, except to serve, transparently, as a kind of stand-in for 9/11, the far more traumatic terrorist attack that did, in fact, significantly traumatize and impact high school students in New York.

But Grand Army does not take place in the past. The show in fact emphasizes that it takes place in 2020 with a late-season reference to the coronavirus pandemic. The oldest students in the show were born in 2002. Yet Grand Army is determined to invoke terrorism, and determined to do so right at the beginning—even though in January 2020, the average teenager was likely more concerned about a classmate walking into class with an AR-15.

This encapsulates the conundrum of Grand Army —a show that appears to mean well, but often seems detached from our reality. The first season jumps from terrorism to cyberbullying, sexual assault to asymmetrical disciplining of black students, with a self-seriousness that lacks humor, style, or even the amusingly corny filter that makes a show like Degrassi so watchable. To be sure, these issues are serious, and the terrorism subplot is easily the worst; the show’s at its best when it allows its remarkable teen performers to inhabit the space with their messy, unlikeable, fragile selves. But compared to two other series that attempt to reveal the dark side of teen life—Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and HBO’s Euphoria — Grand Army ’s flaws stand out. Euphoria heaped stylish, surreal fantasy onto the teens’ stories, lending them a sort of nobility that real life denied them. 13 Reasons Why was aesthetically quite the opposite, but made up for it—at least in its first season—with a consuming mystery that propelled the viewer through 13 hours of teenage social exploitation.

Grand Army attempts a very earnest, high-production-value look at the high schoolers’ lives, focusing on five in particular. In the first episode, the students can see smoke rising a few blocks away from their classroom windows. The school goes into one of these sophisticated lockdowns that educational institutions are all too familiar with now; students are crammed into the stairwells or sitting on the floors of their classrooms, waiting for an all-clear from NYPD. Of course they’re rattled, but teenagers being teenagers, they’re mostly involved in their own drama. Joey Del Marco ( Odessa A’zion ) is trying to get out of staying at her dad’s place. Dominique Pierre ( Odley Jean ) has big plans for how to spend the extra $200 she made this month. Sid ( Amir Bageria ) is trying to keep his friends from putting his younger sister on the swim team’s “bomb pussy” list. When lockdown lifts and the students are sent home, they display that uncanny nonchalance teenagers seem universally possessed with, of being both preternaturally aware of the world’s frailties and somehow also immune to their severity.

This is what Grand Army excels at: showcasing the cocksure, apparent imperviousness of its characters, only to flip them over to excavate the vulnerability beneath. Several of its leads are exceptionally infuriating only to break down, or fall apart, unexpectedly in a later episode. What is heartening about the show, and ultimately what pulled me through to the final episode, is how each teen finds an inelegant way through their struggle (though at least in one character’s case, the result seems more negative than positive). Grand Army succeeds as a portrait of the resiliency of youth, despite a world that, terrorist attacks and all, remains profoundly perplexing.

First-time showrunner Katie Capiello developed the show from her play Slut , whose main character, Joey, is one of the five lead characters of Grand Army (where she’s portrayed by a captivating Odessa A’zion ). Capiello, a former theater educator, told Entertainment Weekly that she’s been developing Grand Army for 18 years (which would explain the 9/11 references), adding that it is her “life’s work.” Her former student Jean turns in a lovely, multi-dimensional performance as Dominique, a Haitian-American immigrant caught between the demands of her cash-strapped family and the opportunities her smarts and skills make available to her.

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Dominique and Joey are classmates, but Dominique seems a decade older—weighed down with financial responsibilities while precariously balancing a rigorous course load and basketball practice. Joey’s smart, but naive—and channels most of her energy towards a loud, self-centric activism, reveling in her freedoms without thoroughly understanding what she’s advocating for. The show is way too precious about Joey, who ends up inflicting more harm than she ever becomes aware of even as she’s victimized midseason by boys she considers her closest friends. Dominique, who never has time for Joey’s antics, is the character who is able to see both Joey’s strengths and frailties. But weirdly, and arguably wrongheadedly, the show is invested in the two becoming friends, which ends up diluting what little perspective the show has about Joey.

Perhaps Grand Army will pick up on Joey’s hypocrisies in a potential season two, exploring how a teenager can loudly decry racism and continue to perpetuate it. But elsewhere, too, Grand Army struggles around issues of race, even as it steadfastly tries to push them into the spotlight. The terrorism thread, such as it is, ends up being explored mostly via Sid, who is Indian-American and fears being racially profiled after the attack. It is exceptionally weird, in an early episode, to hear the character’s voiceover narrate the opening lines of his college admissions essay, because it’s extremely obvious the script was written by a white woman (Capiello herself). We end up finding out a lot more about Sid’s particular struggles, and why the way others see him preoccupies him so. But it’s difficult to leave behind a sense of bad ventriloquism when Indian-immigrant duty and obligation are such huge motivators for the character.

The engaging Jayson ( Maliq Johnson ), another lead, faces a similar flatness. His character’s story is arguably the most serious: After a stupid prank goes wrong, he and his best friend Owen ( Jaden Jordan ) are both suspended. But because Owen had a slightly more active role, he ends up being kicked out of Grand Army for months, while Jayson returns after just two weeks.

Jayson is tortured by the discrepancy between their punishments, and further pained by the distance it creates between him and his friend, whose entire future now seems to be in jeopardy. He ends up becoming more involved in on-campus activism, specifically taking on the “zero-tolerance” policy that led to Owen’s fall from grace. It’s a powerful stance, and an important one. Other black students single out other issues, like targeted policing and asymmetrical disciplining. But again, it’s hard to shake the sense that Jayson’s story is just a sideshow. One character—activist senior John ( Alphonso Romero Jones II ), hands down the show’s heartthrob—uses the phrase “school-to-prison pipeline,” and he means it. But the show doesn’t weigh this incredibly serious issue any more heavily than Sid’s college admissions essay or Joey’s outspokenness in art history class. In fact—and this is a mild spoiler for the end of the season—Jayson and John’s efforts to draw more attention to the serious racial issues at Grand Army are undermined by the actions of the show’s most frustrating and perversely fascinating character, the insecure and irritatingly self-involved Leila ( Amalia Yoo ), a mixed-race adoptee whose own damage prevents her from seeing the hurt of others.

In a way, Leila is a kind of brilliant character: She’s both sympathetic and steadfastly unlikeable, caught between circumstances that estrange her from her own feelings and yet prevent her from prioritizing the feelings of others. She’s a wannabe drama star—a type Capiello must have seen a lot of as a theater educator—but while her weaknesses are finely wrought, the season fails to make a point about why her character matters, and certainly why her toxicity matters as much as the school-to-prison pipeline. Grand Army ’s biggest stylistic departure is its treatment of Leila’s fantasies, portraying them as pulpy animated violence. But there’s something perplexing about all the focus on her. The show doesn’t seem to know what to say about Leila, except that she exists.

And again, maybe most perniciously, that sense of bad ventriloquism permeates her story. Leila was adopted from China, and her struggles are manifested primarily in friction with several Chinese-American girls in her class. They taunt and tease her mercilessly in Chinese, which she doesn’t understand—the primary motif being criticism of her for not being Chinese “enough,” because her parents are white. I’m not saying this is an impossible situation, because bullying doesn’t really need an excuse. But the hostility seems to be a gross oversimplification of the dynamic between immigrants and mixed-race adoptees—a heightened, aggressive hostility that happens to flatter the white people who do accept Leila at the expense of Chinese-Americans, who have no other representation in the series. It’s another situation where Capiello is trying to write with authority on a topic she can’t really have any authority on.

Early in September, when the trailer for Grand Army dropped, writer Ming Peiffer tweeted a scathing critique of Capiello. (Peiffer is one of four credited writers on the eighth episode of Grand Army .) “Me and the [two other writers] of color who worked on the show quit due to racist exploitation and abuse,” Peiffer wrote, adding that Capiello went “full Karen” and “called Netflix HR on the Black writer in the room for getting a haircut.” Peiffer ended the tweet asking for journalists to contact her for the full story—but to date, despite several overtures from reporters in the replies, there has been no story. Capiello has not done any more press, either.

More germane to my review is a tidbit added in a subsequent tweet from Peiffer, who elaborated that the three writers who quit were attempting to prevent Dominique’s story from becoming “poverty porn." Jean does incredible work in the role, which for me prevented it from seeming exploitative. But here as elsewhere is the same issue that crops up in the other stories of minority characters. There’s a discrepancy between what’s intended, or what’s well-meant, and what appears on screen; a tension between whose story is told and whom that story is being told by.

Despite all of Grand Army ’s efforts to be fresh and relevant, even the racial politics within the show don’t reflect where we are today—the vitality of the movement, the passion of its organizers, the centrality it has taken on in nearly every aspect of American political life, especially for young people. Somehow, despite all the efforts to incorporate other stories, the only character that really pops off the screen is Joey, the one that came from Capiello’s 2016 play. Grand Army is a fine effort that has a lot of rich texture about teens today, with their texting and their Instagram accounts and their multiple nuanced methods for cyberbullying each other. But if its stories are engaging, they’re also a bit patronizing, with that sheen of after-school special that indicates something well-meant but lacking authenticity. There’s a lot of good stuff in there, and I wouldn’t suggest it’s a toxic or counterproductive bit of programming. But I think the show meant to be more than what it is. And on that count, it has failed.

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Sonia Saraiya

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Here's The Deal With Those Ominous Messages In Each 'Grand Army' Episode

There's a lot to unpack in Netflix's thrilling first season of Grand Army . While the teen drama is full of great music and some TikTok worthy dances, it also covers everything from racism to sexuality, terrorist attacks to sexual assault. Throughout the Season 1, one of the biggest mysteries that propels the narrative comes in the form of some ominous threats. So, who's typing the messages in Grand Army ? Because the notes are seriously disturbing.

Warning: Grand Army Season 1 spoilers to follow. The Netflix series, released to the streamer on Oct. 16, is based on Katie Cappiello's play titled Slut . While the 2013 theater production mostly followed one character — 16-year-old Joey Del Marco — Cappiello pulled from her own experiences as a drama teacher to form four other characters for the Netflix series. Joey's storyline is similar to the arc in the play, depicting and reflecting on the aftermath of her friends sexually assaulting her.

In addition to Joey (Odessa A'Zion), the rest of the main characters include Dominique Pierre (Odley Jean), Siddhartha Pakam (Amir Bageria), Jayson Jackson (Maliq Johnson), and Leila Kwan Zimmer (Amalia Yoo). The five teens' storylines ebb and flow with each other's as they try to navigate their individual hardships and collective experiences.

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Siddhartha (called Sid in the show) is coming to terms with his sexuality, while Jayson is honing his musical ability and dealing with the unfair ramifications of a prank gone wrong. Dominique is trying to balance supporting her family and excelling in school and sports, while freshman Leila — a Chinese-American who was adopted by white, Jewish parents — deals with bullying and finding her place in the school and her community.

Not only are they each grappling with their own struggles, but the entire city is recovering after a recent nearby bombing. And throughout all that , someone is typing up an ominous message at the end of each episode. A message that, fans eventually piece together, is a bomb threat aimed at Grand Army High School.

So, who's behind the message?

In a shocking twist toward the end of the season, Leila is seen happily typing up the message before scheduling it to be sent to the school administration via email. It turns out, she's coping with the hardships in her life by having violent fantasies — and yup, typing up a long manifesto about a pressure-cooker bomb hidden in the school. In the final episode, she is seen reveling in the moment when the chaos starts.

Even though Leila's threat turns out to be just that — the school is evacuated and no one is hurt — it's unnerving that she outwardly shows no remorse toward her actions. Here's hoping that means a second season in the works so viewers can see whether Leila gets caught for what she did, and gets the help and support she very much needs.

Grand Army is on Netflix now .

Why This New Netflix Teen Show Is Already Stirring Up Controversy

Allegations of racist exploitation and abuse emerged in September.

Spoilers ahead for Season 1 of Grand Army. Netflix's new teen drama Grand Army only premiered on Friday, but it's already been at the center of controversy . On Sept. 2, playwright and screenwriter Ming Peiffer tweeted that she'd worked on the show but quit alongside two other writers of color due to alleged "racist exploitation and abuse." She also criticized showrunner Katie Cappiello, though she didn't mention her by name. "The show runner and creator went full Karen and called Netflix hr on the Black writer in the room for getting a haircut," Peiffer claimed of Cappiello, who is white. In a second tweet , Peiffer alleged that Netflix was "fully aware of it all and did nothing except hire more writers of color to lend their names to the show," only to reach out two years later to "hear their concerns" ahead of Grand Army 's release. (Peiffer, Cappiello, and Netflix all declined to comment to Bustle).

This is particularly significant given the content of the show. It's based on Cappiello's 2013 play SLUT , which follows a white Brooklyn teen named Joey who's raped by her closest friends . Grand Army expands that story, introducing four teens of color who deal with issues like poverty, homophobia, and racism. As the main character from SLUT , Joey is the most fully realized teen, portrayed with charisma and poignancy by Odessa A'zion. As in the play, her story includes sharp criticisms of slut-shaming, rape culture, and the criminal justice system's inability to fairly handle related cases . But while these are undeniably important topics, the focus on Joey means the characters of color tend to feel secondary, and their storylines are executed with varying degrees of success.

It's Odley Jean's Dom, a Black teen struggling to pursue her own dreams and ambitions while helping to keep her family afloat, who feels the most like the show's co-lead. In a subsequent tweet, Peiffer alleged that she and the other writers quit specifically after trying to change Dom's storyline into something other than "poverty porn." Jean imbues Dom with spirit and vulnerability, and compared to Joey's season-long mental breakdown, Dom does have more moments of levity and joy. But Dom also feels a decade older than Joey: while Joey parties and stages a "Free the Nipple" protest, Dom juggles studying, housework, and the prospect of entering into a transactional Green Card marriage in order to get her family out of a financial bind. Though Dom has probably the happiest ending of the bunch by season's end, it's hard to shake the feeling that on paper, she falls into the Strong Black Woman trope. The narrative tries to subvert this when Dom herself expresses how Black women need mental health resources, but it feels at odds with the way Grand Army treats her character as a whole.

These same flaws appear in other storylines. Indian American Sid (Amir Bageria) grapples with being gay and being called various Middle Eastern and South Asian slurs by his white peers, and yet this feels subsidiary to his arc about perfecting his college application essay. Cheerful musicians Owen (Jaden Jordan) and Jayson (Maliq Johnson) get similarly short-changed. After a small prank lands both of them in trouble, Jayson gets two weeks of suspension while Owen — who played a more active role in the prank — gets 60 days. This harsh treatment radicalizes Jayson, who becomes close with Dom's boyfriend John Ellis (Alphonso Romero Jones II), a charismatic student activist fighting against the school-to-prison pipeline. Together they plan a school-wide walkout demanding that Grand Army High rethink its racist policies and toxic culture.

But the entire walkout is undermined by Leila (Amalia Yoo), a freshman who becomes cartoonishly villainous by the end of the season. In a horrendously self-serving move, she emails a fake bomb threat to the school just to ensure the play she was kicked out of gets canceled. It's on the same day as the walkout, ultimately undercutting all the momentum Jayson and John built throughout the season. It's possible this is an analogy for anti-Blackness within the Asian community , but Leila is never confronted about her actions (assumedly to leave room for a potential Season 2).

This compounds other issues present in Leila's storyline. As a Chinese American adopted by white, Jewish parents, Leila's struggle to navigate her blended identity is relatable. But any nuance that may have been present in the character is quickly buried under flat writing and increasingly angry, animated zombie fantasies that feel tonally off from the rest of the show. Grand Army also spends an inordinate amount of time painting Leila as an antagonist — a misguided approach when all of the other Asian girl characters exist entirely in the background. Sid's sister Meera mostly serves his story, and the other girls are stereotypically mean, constantly mocking Leila in Chinese; Leila's last interaction with them is telling them to "speak f*cking English." In light of an Asian writer walking away from the show, it's hard not to view all of this as an egregious failing.

Ultimately, Grand Army takes a more sensitive approach to these subjects than Netflix's other polarizing teen series 13 Reasons Why , which positioned lead character Clay as a white savior and tackled a variety of hot button issues with the gentleness of a sledgehammer. But the discourse around the writers room is a reminder that the people behind the scenes matter just as much as the onscreen representation, and that impact is more important than well-meaning intent. As Dom herself says, "We need someone to hear us. It matters who hears you and says 'I understand.' It just matters."

This article was originally published on Oct. 16, 2020

‘Grand Army’ fumbles to wholeheartedly express social issues

With the release of Netflix’s “Grand Army” on Oct. 16, the show attempts to highlight many problems that are identifiable within today’s youth 

Gaby Jones , Culture Editor | January 5, 2021

The   new teen drama , “Grand Army”  is  centered around five kids from Brooklyn   and the  multitude of issues that the diverse  group of students must tackle . These problems  only to be made worse when a  bomb goes off right next to  th e  school .  

The show starts off with a terrorist attack. Despite this being a significant event in all the  students’  lives ,  throughout most of the episodes ,  it does not hold much weight . Instead,   we are  immediately thrown  into various topics such as ra c ism, sexuality,  cultural identity,  sexual assault,  poverty ,  etc .  I feel that if they were going to begin  a  story with such a large event,  then  they should have  taken more time to acknowledge the generation ’ s desensitization to traumatic events.   

In the first episode we  are  introduced to the five main characters ,  Joey  D el Marco  (Odessa A ‘Zion ), Dominique “Dom” Pierre ( Odely  Jean ),  Siddhartha “Sid” Pakam  ( Amir  Bageria ) , Jayson Jackson  (Maliq Johnson)  and Leila Kwan Zimmer (Amalia  Yoo ) .  Although it’s clear that the  racial  inclusivity  is  a blatant  tactic to  discuss   hot-button issues among minorities, I  recognize that , regardless, the diversity   helps  to  normalize  seeing   people of color in mainstream coming of age stories.   

Initially, I had thought each  main  character was going to get an episode centered around themselves  ( similar  to   “E uphoria ” ) and  cut  back to clips of the other characters ;  however ,  the structure is  much  more undefined .   

Aside from the f rom the  Pilot , each  episode  opens with a   cryptic typewritten message from an unknown  individual who is later revealed at the end of the season.  This short section felt out of place and like an excuse to  add a  mystery  aspect which does not make sense with in  the context.  

There is little  history among the five characters, so  their relationships with  each other  do not develop too much during thi s season, but it seems like they are setting up for  deeper  connections  with in  a possible  second season.     

Tackling five character with deeply complex issues all at once was an ambitious move made by th e   showrunners .  With  each  character,   the   storytelling  come with its faults , as well as some praises.  

  Joey Del Marco  ( who is presumably the central character  despite Netflix’s best efforts to  keep  each character’s  importance equal )  is   a  self-confident  and unabashedly outspoken individual who  makes attempts  at  ally ship  among st  their diverse school.     As the show continues,  I really hope the show goes on to  address  the performative aspects of her allyship and activism.  Soon into the show,  Joey’s  formally luminous persona is ripped  away  from her when she is assaulted by tw o of her close st  friends. I applaud  A’Zion’s  performance  throughout Joey’s story because it is  heartbreaking   and  riveting  to watch the character develop from t he night of the assault, to the news that the system failed her,  to  the confrontation of her rapists , and the n finally her   regain of confidence and feelings of freedom that are symbolized in her final dance scene.   

Dominique “Dom” Pierre is a  Haitian-American   who wants to be the first in her family to attend college. Throughout her story we watch as Dom  struggles to manage school, provide for her mother and her sister’s family ,  apply for  internships  and explore her new relationship  with school athlete and activist, John Ellis  ( Alphonso Romero Jones II ) .   Dom   knows that she will have  overcome  more obstacles than  her privileged counterparts in order  to get her dreams .   Something very refreshing about Dom is that  the acknowledgement of her disadvantages   does  not come with  extended  complaints  (the someone in her position is entitled to) . This is  due to the fact that  she is self-aware  and overwhelmingly selfless  which  are  great thing s  to have in main character s .   Jean’s portrayal of Dom is exceptional  and one of my favorite parts of this show.  S imilar to   Joey, you find it  easy  to  root for her.   

Mentioning self-aware ness , the next character is the opposite. Leila Kwan Zimmer  is a freshman at Grand Army  and is searching for her place in the world . She struggles with her identity being that she is a  Chinese adoptee  raised by Jewish parents .  Leila finds it hard to connect to  her  culture or even fit in with the  Chinese girls at her school.  Her  story is accompanied by graphic cartoons  that  illustrate  her feelings and exist  within  a “The Walking Dead ” – esque  universe.   Her desperation  to feel accepted  becomes readily apparent when she chases after a n older boy  who  also happens to be one of the boys who assaulted Joey . Leila  is the type of character that   goes from  being the  menace to  the   villain  in the matter of minutes .     As the season progresses, we see Leila go from  being  selfish and attention seeking to a more violent and sociopathic version of herself who seeks to instill fear in others.  Once again, I commend  Yoo’s   performance. Leila is a very layered character who I found myself feeling sympathy for  even in times where she did not deserve it.  Yoo   definitely had  one of the most difficult characters to portray and  even though Leila is overall very unlikeable ; however,   I a m  intrigued to see what the writers plan on doing with her  character.   

Both  sexual  identity and terrorism are explore d through  the  next character.  Siddhartha “Sid” Pakam  is an  Indian American  student  who faces  racial profiling and threatening stares after the bombing .    T hroughout the show ,   he  fears th at they   ne ver  amount to any substantial harm.   At the same time,  Sid is applying to Harvard and is struggling to find something meaningful to say in his college essay . That is, until he starts to  discover and come to terms with his sexuality.  In the end of the season, t here is a  wholesome , but predictable romance between him and  Victor-the boy who initially help ed  him with his application.  I was relieved that ,  by the last episode ,   Sid  abandoned his friends (who also happen  to be  Joeys’   rapists)  who  perpetuated casual racism  and ignorance towards him the entire season.   

The last main character ’s  story see m ed  to  have  had   the  potential for  important social  commentar y, but ultimately it is overshadowed  by other plot lines . Jayson Jackson  is talented young black musician  who , along with his  friend  Owen, have their sights set  on performing with the New York All-State Band.  When the school is put on lock-down, an act of  mischief  gets both boys in trouble .   D ue to Owen ’s larger involvement  in the act ,  he is suspended for an extended amount of time and sent to a school for kids  in similar situations . Jayson feels  that Owen’s punishment is unjust ,  and  that  the situation was blown out of proportion simply because of their race.  Despite Owen pushing their friendship away, Ja y son  becomes a   leader in  school activism  to protest Owen ’ s punishment and the even larger issues surrounding it.  The last scene of the season  is a visually powerful moment that depicts   Ja y son placing an X over his mout h and  taking a moment of silence   during   his solo  in front of   the packed auditorium. In the next season ,  I hope to see  J ohnson  get more screen time , so   he can r elay  the importance  of Jayson’s  story  to the viewers .  

The last episode reiterates t he show’s   relevancy and up to date timeline  and  even makes a  reference to the Coronavirus . I am very interested in seeing how COVID-19 will be worked into  a  second season.  

Overall, “Grand Army”  has promise .  With a possible renewal ,  I  hope  they refine the  episode  structure,  expound on their characters,  acknowledge the harmful effects of casual racism and  explore the depth s  of  performative activism.  

With that being said,  I  recommend this show not so much for the relevanc y ,  ( because nothing they discussed  is necessarily new information )  but more  so  for the great young actors who  propel  each story  and supply the show with  enough  captivating moments  to  keep you going through each  of the nine episodes.  

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