Breaker High, Episode 2: Pranks for the Memories

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! To anyone who engaged with the first recap post and decided to come back for more, thank you. Today, as expected, we’ll be recapping the second episode of Breaker High: “Pranks for the Memories.”

Right off the bat, I have to say, I’m a little bit scared of this one, just based off the title alone, as secondhand embarrassment and I do not get along very well, and getting there from “pranks” is a pretty direct through line. *deep breath* Alright, let’s go.

The very first line, from the blonde girl who we learn is named Cassidy, is “Four straight days at sea.” I think I can see where the plot for the episode came from: After running out of other things to do while “trapped on the boat” as Jimmy replies, what else is left but to prank each other? Plus, we may get to know the students better in their “home environment” without any external distractions. Let’s see if I’m right.

The first prank is pretty innocent - student activities director Tony slipped a fake ice cube with a fly in the middle into Cassidy’s drink, and as she pulls it out with a horrified look on her face, he jumps out with a camera to take a photo, if only so that every photo in the yearbook wouldn’t be staged and posed. As he leaves, Jimmy boasts about how great a prankster he is while Cassidy pretends her water bottle fell (she absolutely knocks it over), and she uses that distraction to tie his shoes together, causing him to fall into the pool when he moves.

After we break for the theme song, we come back to Tamira practicing a conversation she hopes to have with Max, in which she gives him a cassette tape (!) of a friend’s band, for which she wrote one of the songs’ lyrics. While at first she pretends he responds with “You’re really cool, Tamira; want to be my girlfriend?”, self-doubt soon takes over. And then, of course, because she’s doing this in public, Max spies her and comes over to ask who she’s talking to. She does give him the tape, but in a much more awkward fashion than she probably hoped; he does say he’ll listen to it, though!

We then head to one of the girls’ bedrooms for a girls’ night in, complete with the four Ps: pajamas, pillows, popcorn, and prattling about boys. Cassidy starts out by drooling over Alex. We learn that the Black girl from last episode’s name is Denise (there’s actually another one in this scene as a background extra, so the casting directors are growing, they’re evolving), and she thinks Sean (baby Ryan Gosling, remember) is cute, but is immediately shot down so qualifies her statement with “in a retro lounge lizard kind of way” (somebody please trace how that statement has aged through Ryan Gosling’s filmography).

Also as we might expect, nobody is into Jimmy. Tamira asks what they think of Max, just to get some feelers out, and of course they love him, calling him “the bomb.” Cassidy compares him to Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, and Scott Wolf all rolled into one, and while Denise says “And about as hard to get,” Atlanta girl Ashley chimes in with “Maybe for you, but Ashley Dupree can have any man she wants.” Yes, she refers to herself in the third person, and yes, the look on Tamira’s face is heartbreaking.

Denise ups the stakes by betting that Ashley can’t get Max to ask her to that weekend’s Disco Fever dance; loser works in the cafeteria for a week. Tamira is confused, as she thought Ashley already had a boyfriend back home, and Ashley responds, “Who said anything about a boyfriend? I’m not going to keep Max, sugar; I’m just going to teach Denise here a little lesson.” Cassidy teases that if Ashley wins, she wants her to find out where Max’s other tattoo is (aside from the one on his right arm), and Tamira pretends to be amused but definitely still looks perturbed.

Cut to Jimmy entering his bedroom and doing a belly flop onto his bed, only to find out that balloons have been hidden under the covers, an eerily similar prank to the “whoopee sheet” one he described to Cassidy earlier. Looks like a prank war might be on! He retaliates, and then so does she by replacing his towel with a frilly nightgown while he’s in the shower. He gets her back in the classroom with a whoopee cushion that makes a cow noise, and at this point I just want to know where they’re getting all these supplies if they’re stuck onboard.

We cut to the coffeehouse lounge on the ship, where Tamira sits down with Sean and winds up spilling the whole Max/Ashley story to him, including the fact that she’s crushing on Max too? There has been no evidence thus far that they are close enough friends for a conversation like this, but alrighty then.

Cassidy comes to the cafeteria for lunch with Alex and Denise, and before she sits down examines the table, chair, tray, everything for potential pranking from Jimmy while the other two look at her like she’s nuts. There was apparently one place she didn’t check; her backpack light