I remember loving this show the first time around, and even being pissed when it got cancelled after barely 1 season back in 1999. It has been almost 18 years since it came out and watching it now, I can't help but get pissed at the Lindsey character for being a fucking idiot. Back when I was 25, I accepted she was acting a little rebellious, much like teens are supposed to, as so many TV shows tell us. In the show though, she has an intact nuclear family, dad owns a sports store, mom is a stay at home mom, Lindsey the older teen and Sam, her freshman brother.
I believe it is mostly because she has a crush on the character played by James Franco that she allows herself to go down that slippery slope of slowly becoming an asshole with no character and no substance. She agrees to a party in the first or second episode and is even OK with older guys coming, which means dirtbag adult men-child dudes show up and of course they want to trash the place. After she sees that the party is a waste as she is not going to get to make out with the good looking bad boy, she cries to one of her brother's friends who has always been in love with her. He heroes up and calls the cops to break up the party and save her. She should have been done with the "freaks", or stoners at this point, but in the next episode there she is again, vandalizing houses by breaking pumpkins and throwing eggs. Not until she accidentally eggs her own brother does she realize she is being an asshole, but does she stop hanging out with the troublemakers? I then watched the next episode and she then brings the other girl in the gang home with her and she ends up getting in a fight with the James Franco character, completely disrespecting her house. Surely this would put a stop to her shenanigans? No, she is a stupid girl. I never understood why her parents didn't make her take up an after school job, they did own a store, or come down on her when they met the fuck-ups.
Boy hung out with some would be, could be troublemakers, but I never really allowed him to leave the house with them. They came over and if they were being idiots I was quick to call them on it. These were kids without father figures at home, of course, the first sign of possible troublemakers. I loved them and treated them as my own, meaning I yelled at them just like I do my own Boy. If they were going to be around, I was going to try and affect their behavior, they were not going to affect my son's behavior.
I love how the younger brother and friends are trying to prop her up as they have always worshipped her as their pretty girl and they see her being shitty, but in the real world you can't really save those who don't want to be saved. I guess that's why the show didn't make sense. She was never really running away from anything, she had plenty of love at home. She saw in the troublemakers how rough their home lives were, yet there kept going the dopey girl trying to find herself and relate. She should have just kept trying to be herself and not tried so hard at fitting in.
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