Freaks and Geeks
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Consider theFreaks and Geekspromo image, now splayed across the Hulu welcome screen.
The groups are standing next to each other in front of a row of lockers, but theyre nottogether.
Theyre organized as separate entities, running parallel to each other but never intersecting.
If you watchedFreaks and Geeksbefore it landed onHuluon January 25, you know this division doesnt last.
Did NBCs unexpected cancellation ofFreaks and Geeksonly add to its beloved underdog status over the past 21 years?
Even if the show werent surrounded in that mythical What could have been?
hype, its strengths would still resonate.
Thats not to say thatFreaks and Geeksisnt flawed.
Even for its Michigan-in-1980 setting, it is an astonishingly white show.
Some of its humor is keyed in that lightly homophobic register of the late 90s.
Would you want to be?
Then the camera drops downward.
But Sam doesnt want Lindsays help at least not initially.
Alan calls her your freak sister; Sam is embarrassed by Lindsays protectiveness.
Everyone weve met so far in theFreaks and Geeksuniverse would probably agree.
But is Lindsays sense of right and wrong as sophisticated as she thinks?
Shes not still a nerd, but shes not quite a freak.
Shes just Lindsay, and shes trying to figure it out.
What if Sam just avoided Alan for four years, Neal suggests.
What if none of this matters?
What if, unlike Nick, she never finds her lifes purpose, her big, gigantic drum kit?
What if shes already stuck?
The world is not black and white.
Its gray, high school counselor Mr. Rosso (Dave Gruber Allen) tells Lindsay.
Freaks arent always freaks.
Geeks arent always geeks.
And maybe they were never really that different at all.
