It’s Not The Waking, It’s The Rising
Episode 9 of Tiny Pretty Things begins at the theatre as Monique is approached by Officer Cruz who has an arrest warrant for one of the girls. Which one? Well, we’ll have to wait and see as we cut back 2 days earlier. As we do, news of Neveah’s article spreads, bringing the management together to discuss the current situation. Katrina shows up not long after and stirs the pot. With cancellations and ticket sales dwindling, all fingers point to Monique as the sacrificial lamb. She pleads with the others to let her turn this around, which they eventually agree to do. Meanwhile, the kids all rally together and decide to produce a promo video to drum up support for the ballet. When Caleb tells Monique his plan, she’s having none of it though and tells him it’s not a good idea. In front of Selena at the doorway, Caleb holds Monique’s hand as she thanks him. Wait, what? There’s a story breaking about abuse between young girls and the Michi Beach but yet Monique thinks this is a good idea? At hospital, Cruz confronts Nabil and tells him she knows he’s not to blame for what happened to Cassie. Suddenly, Cassie awakens and weakly whispers the word “pushed” before passing out again. In the gym, Alan checks out Bette’s injured foot. Despite her blackened toes, Alan tells her she’s ready to get back on her feet and dance. Back at the studio, Nabil feeds back what happened to Cassie in hospital to Oren. Not long after, Beth is given the lead role of the play in the wake of her foot healing. June is none too happy about being cast out so quickly but she seems alone in this, especially given most of the kids enthusiastically look forward to shooting their promo video. June instead confronts Monique around the Michi Beach situation. June believes Travis was the one responsible for pushing Cassie and tells Monique as much. That night, all the girls break curfew and head out to shoot their video. With them gone, Cruz heads to the dorm rooms in a bid to decipher the calling card and who wrote this. Of course, that’s probably what she should have done half a season ago. Anyway, she starts looking at the handwriting for the different kids to see which matches up. Ramon heads into hospital and speaks to Cassie. She tries to get away but he promises to tear her wings off if she speaks about anything from the past. He even goes so far as to threaten her with worse than another tumble off the roof. When Nabil shows, Cassie tells him they just had a fling and nothing more. Defeated and heartbroken, Nabil leaves as Ramon whispers “good girl” in Cassie’s ear. Up on the roof, Nabil grabs June and pulls her off the edge. As he does, she suddenly leans forward and kisses him. This seems to be motivation enough for her to head back down and dance – and dance they do. In a solid 3-4 minute stint, the kids all band together for their promotional video. It works a treat too, with the video going viral and numerous people commenting and asking how to get tickets. This seems to be just what the ballet needs. Afterwards, Caleb speaks to Monique in her office where she ends things between them. Monique apologizes though and eventually leaves. As she does, Alan and Topher discuss whether the latter could take over from Monique when she’s eventually kicked out. Well, when it comes to the opening night of the ballet, Topher decides to do just that as Ramon begins boasting about his future career prospects. Cruz heads to the hospital and urges Cassie to reveal the truth about who pushed her. As we cut back to the ballet, Cruz heads in and grabs Bette, arresting her for attempted murder. Because of this, June is promoted once again to the lead role. As the episode closes out, Monique promises Neveah this will be the last performance she ever does at the school. In retaliation, Neveah tells her she’ll do everything she can to destroy her.
The Episode Review
The numerous half-baked romances continue this time around as we see June kissing Nabil up on the rooftop. Honestly, some of the decisions for these characters make no sense and that’s before getting into the tonal inconsistency too. The random bouts of humour make absolutely no sense here and jar badly against some of the more sombre and dark drama that could so easily have made this a sure-fire hit. Bette’s drug addiction hasn’t been mentioned once this episode while her foot is apparently all healed up now with barely a whiff of substantial drama to accompany it. The situation between her family has actually been quite interesting but it hasn’t been developed in a way that makes for compelling drama, instead skimming across the surface of what could have been. With Bette arrested for Cassie’s fall, this is very clearly the wrong person given the ending. Well, everything now rests on a finale that may or may not leave things on a cliffhanger. Let’s hope it doesn’t for all our sakes.
