Skins: 10 Best Episodes, Ranked According To IMDb

Content warning: This article mentions suicide, substance abuse, alcohol, depression, and death.

The popular, funny, and often controversial British drama Skins received critical acclaim as well as widespread audience approval during its seven-season run. The first six seasons follow three generations of teens growing up in Bristol, England dealing with many internal and external struggles.

Season 7 deviates from this structural pattern and takes three of the show's most beloved characters - Effy, Cassie, and Cook - and gives fans an insight into their adult lives. Skins is notorious for its stark realism, which often means that the lessons viewers may learn from each episode are bleak.

10. Season 4 Episode 3: Cook (8.5)

This episode shares the spot with Season 3 Episode 8: Effy, and Season 4 Episode 4: Katie. In Cook's episode, viewers get an inside look into his home life. After being released from custody with an electronic tag, Cook is sent to live with his mother, who is an alcoholic.

Cook's younger brother, Paddy, idolizes him even though he's just been expelled from Roundview. The brothers spend the day together, during which Cook learns that Freddie has had sex with his mum. Enraged, he and Paddy steal her car and trash it. However, Cook worries that Paddy will turn out like him, so he admits to selling the drugs to Sophia, the girl who dies by suicide after her affair with Naomi.

9. Season 1 Episode 2: Cassie (8.6)

Cassie has fooled almost everyone into believing that she's conquered her eating disorder. Sid is one of the few people to notice and care about her struggles, and he certainly isn't fooled by her airy-fairy front.

In this episode, Cassie and Sid get to know each other while Tony is off with Michelle. She teaches Sid how to avoid eating and shows him how she does it at home, at school, and around her friends.

8. Season 1 Episode 8: Effy (8.7)

Before Effy is a main character in the second generation of Skins characters, she appears as Tony's younger sister. Nobody seems to notice or care that she never speaks. Her only friend is a girl just as talkative and silly as Pandora, but viewers never see her again.

Tony is the only one who seems to care about Effy, though this often ends up being their shared downfall. When Effy sneaks out at night, Tony helps to cover for her, but this results in Effy getting hurt later in the series.

7. Season 2 Episode 5: Chris (8.7)

Chris and Jal strike up a deal that involves Jal replacing her nos with yeses. Chris realizes that he's in love with her, so he stops saying "f*** it", gets a job, and shows off his new flat to Jal.

Unfortunately, their joy is short-lived. Cassie returns from Scotland and moves in with Chris. Still heartbroken and betrayed by Sid, she casts her gloom over Jal's newfound happiness. This affects both girls deeply, but Chris is trying to make something of his life.

6. Season 2 Episode 7: Effy (8.7)

Effy remains the mysterious enigma in her second centric episode. She's still a side character, but fans get a little more insight into who she is in this episode. They also meet Pandora for the first time, who becomes a main character in the second generation.

Effy goes to pick up drugs from Cassie, blessing fans with the iconic scene in which Pandora explains to her mum on the phone that they're picking up salad (and that her friend is not from the Internet). Meanwhile, she commissions Sid to complete her art assignment while helping him and Cassie make amends, as well as helping Tony heal his relationship with Michelle.

5. Season 3 Episode 7: JJ (8.7)

JJ visits the medical center about his feelings of confusion and anxiety, where he receives medication for his Asperger's. He also runs into Emily Fitch, with whom he has an interesting friendship.

She comes out to JJ, which JJ accidentally lets slip to Katie when they return to the Fitch household to find Katie having sex with Freddie. JJ visits Effy and requests that she stop interfering with his friendship with Cook and Freddie, while also admitting that he loves her. After this, JJ visits Cook to discover he's sleeping with Pandora.

4. Season 2 Episode 3: Sid (8.8)

With Cassie away in Scotland and Tony busy with Michelle, Sid feels alone. What's more, he wrongly assumes that Cassie is cheating on him after seeing her interactions with her male friends in Scotland.

Sid's father is preparing the house for Sid's grandfather to visit, so he can't ask his dad for advice, either. His grandfather still believes that Sid's parents are together, and Sid's dad is to keep it that way.

3. Season 2 Episode 9: Cassie (9.0)

Despite everything going well for the gang, Cassie isn't able to feel happy. She and Sid are back together, Chris is feeling better, Michelle and Tony are also back together, and exams are over. Yet Cassie feels burdened with the knowledge of her friends' problems.

Jal is pregnant but can't tell Chris, while Chris is only presenting the best side of himself to everyone. Once again, Cassie feels the need to run. And this time, she runs halfway across the world, all the way to New York City.

2. Season 1 Episode 9: Finale (9.1)

Anwar is having a birthday party, but nobody feels like celebrating. Sid and Tony aren't really friends, and Cassie isn't really speaking to Sid. Eventually, he makes up his mind to tell her how he feels, but it doesn't go well. Still, the couple gets a resolution by the end of the episode.

Tony has finally given up the act and admits to Michelle that he loves her, but as luck would have it, he's hit by a bus right as he tells her. Severely injured, he's taken to the hospital, leaving Michelle even more heartbroken than she was before.

1. Season 2 Episode 10: Everyone (9.3)

The teens receive their academic results and attend Chris's funeral - sort of. Chris's father doesn't want any of his friends there because he believes they're delinquents. Sid and Tony come up with a solution and everyone says goodbye to Chris, except for Cassie.

Cassie has left for New York, but Tony convinces Sid to follow her (and finally ditch his hat). After dropping him off at the airport, Tony and Michelle come to a resolution. Also embarking on a journey are Maxxie and Anwar, who have mended their friendship after the whole Sketch fiasco.

[Originally shared via ScreenRant.]