NYC Prep vs. Miami Social

The Miami Socs live in a place where it's always hot and sweaty and clothes are just these dumb things that get in the way of being as attractive and abs-announcing as possible. I've never been to Florida, but in my mind it's this swamp of incest and malaria and serial killers, the way Flannery O'Connor would have wanted it. I think that if you choose to live there then you are probably somewhat mentally ill already. I know this because I live in Los Angeles, which is sort of like Florida without the hundred-degree temperatures and the alligators.

Major Plots and Intrigues

The Prep kids shop, hire stylists they hate, play pool badly, drink sodas, and dream of having sex with each other. There's a lot of talk about pursuing, acquiring, maintaining, and disdaining social status. But because the show focuses on such a small group of kids who already seemingly know a lot about each other, actual social climbing is beside the point. This week a pet dog died. Two of the girls went to a place where resentful non-TV-crew-having teenage employees will assist you in custom-designing your own wealthy, personalized trail mix.

Then when you aren't looking they will spit into it. But more importantly we were treated to the sight of PC passively wandering around on a drunken Cancun night, allowing his friend (and apparent crush-object) JP to dangle liquored-up, deflowerable teenage lady-tourists in front of his disinterested face. Finally, the elaborately hairstyled Sebastian had dinner with his actual father, a man who is nearly bald and working what looks like the last embarrassed gasp of a comb-over. GAZE INTO THE FUTURE SEBASTIAN! SWOOP THAT MANE NOW WHILE THERE'S STILL TIME!

The Miami Socs preen, smoke, drink cocktails, pretend to work in real estate, get pedicures, sexually harass people they work with, look at their own reflections in little pools of non-potable water, forget to button their shirts, and radiate the fear of aging in tsunami-sized waves of panic, rage, and tacky fake glamour. In episode one, two of them (I don't know names yet and to learn them feels like giving in at this point) work out on the beach, two of them have angry role-playing sex, two others decide to get divorced, and one gay has a fat woman kicked out of a party. Because she's fat.

Wisdom

For the NYC Preps, when school is out, complete sentences cease to exist. Words float randomly in frozen-breath circles above heads, replaced by gestures, stammers, and meaning-filled bang adjustments in an inadvertent mumblecore film of their own making. "So what are we doing?" says one teen who might be asking about the status of a potential love-match or merely confused about what's supposed to be happening after the director yells "Action!" And the answer to that question is a sheepish "I dunno."

The Miami Socs, older and more verbal in spite of their collective compulsive quest to let their bodies do all the talking, spew out streams of empty quotes. Read on for some winners...