Diksha Sundriyal
In its fifth episode, the show infuses the story with a new conflict while dissolving the ones that had previously plagued Sydney. In the previous episode, she had a fallout with Stanley, who was trying to help her test her powers. The situation with Dina continued to be more or less the same, as she avoided her as much as she could so she didn’t have to confront the part where she had kissed her. She decides to stay out of trouble, but, of course, it doesn’t work that way.
Inching closer to its finale, ‘I Am Not Okay with This’ remains enjoyable, especially if you love a dose of nostalgia. By far, it has stayed true to the classic tropes that make teen dramas entertaining. But with only two more episodes to go, there is not much that one can take away from the series. How far can it go with this approach?
I Am Not Okay with This Episode 5 Recap
Sydney decides to keep her mouth shut and stay out of others’ business to stop herself from making any more trouble. But when Dina gets detention because of, and along with, Brad, Syd intervenes and is thrown in detention too. Stan had been trying to talk to her ever since the bowling alley incident, and deliberately gets himself in detention as well. They are joined by Jenny, who had shown up at the party before and was supposed to be in rehab.
In the library, a strange presence terrifies Syd and she knocks over bookshelves. The act is caught in the CCTV and now, she, Stan and Dina have to get the footage from the principal’s office.
I Am Not Okay with This Episode 5 Review
‘Another Day in Paradise’ mixes two popular teen classics and delivers their own version for ‘I Am Not Okay with This’. Five teenagers, each completely different from the one next to them, confined in a room, forced to spend time in detention. This trope has been used countless times before but the movie that popularised it was ‘The Breakfast Club’. The show checks off from its list the act of paying a nod to the beloved teen drama, though does stick to its own story in the meantime.
We also witness a shift in the series in terms of the Netflix show that it best reflects. From the first couple of episodes, when the story was more centred on Syd’s emotions and her angst for being at odds with her mother, the anger and grief over her father’s death, and for losing her best friend to a jock that she hates, her narrative was more in sync with ‘The End of the F***ing World’. Then, her powers started receiving more share in the story, and in this episode, particularly, it becomes a focal point of the plot. Her teen issues take a backseat and the trouble that comes with being a superhero receives emphasis. This morphs the tone of the show from ‘End of the World’ to ‘Stranger Things’.
Due to its short run-time, Netflix has structured ‘I Am Not Okay with This’ in a way that serves the binge thirst of the viewers. Before you can find some flaw in the show, it will already be over and your overall impression would be that you enjoyed the most of it. However, once you sit back and think about the progress that the story makes with every episode, questions pop up. Currently, the show seems divided over what it wants to be. Is it time to completely give in to the supernatural part of it, or should it focus more on the dilemmas of Syd which is the real soul of the story?
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