PEN15 Season 2 recap: Episode 1, ‘Pool’

In PEN15 season 2, episode 1, Anna and Maya attend a lame pool party and are shocked to see their crush in attendance. 

PEN15 season 2, episode 1 picks up only two days after the dance — you know, the event where Anna and Maya got “felt up” by Brandt in the closet? It’s all their hormone-addled minds can focus on.

Realistically, Maya and Anna should move on at this point and focus on growing up, something they both indicate they’re ready for in their opening phone call. But being a preteen girl is one of the most challenging and confusing times of your life. They’d rather seem exciting and provocative as if their lives are full of drama and intrigue.

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At the pool party, they try to “clear up” drama between each other and their respective boyfriends. Anna chides Sam for lying about his identity on AIM to Maya. Rather than grovel, Sam tells Anna he already apologized, and perhaps her best friend didn’t tell her all the details. Anna shrinks into her inner-child and tells him to be more mature, despite the fact she’s the one acting inappropriate.

Remember Brendan? Anna’s sort-of ex-boyfriend? Maya tells him to stop obsessing over Anna, but he’s over her and already dating someone new. As for Brandt, the boy who took the girls into the closet at the dance and awkwardly told Maya he loved her, he doesn’t want to think about any of that and would rather forget it ever happened. He denies it happened at all when Maya confronts him in the pool.

Eager to get Brandt to admit the whole closet thing happened, Maya and Anna start asking everyone at the party if they saw anything, essentially broadcasting the incident to anyone who will listen. Later, alone in Isaac’s room (the house of the boy actually throwing the party),  Maya and Anna get a chance to talk to Brandt alone, and he tells them, sure, it happened, although he’s clearly disinterested.

PEN15 season 2, episode 1 recap: The aftermath of the pool party.

Unfortunately for Anna and Maya, they don’t realize their mistake in telling everyone about the “threesome” until they get to school the next day. Jenna is only too happy to tell them that the rumor spread like wildlife, and now everyone thinks the two best friends are nothing but  “desperate s***s.”

It’s one of those painful moments where they now realize the awful double standard girls and women must deal with throughout life. Even if the two of them were fine calling other girls s***s, neither seemed to understand what it meant or the damage it could do. As the Vulture recapper pointed out, Anna and Maya  have had their first moment of running “up against a double standard and realized it was insurmountable.”

Odds & Ends from PEN15 season 2, episode 1

• Isaac’s mom has one rule at the pool party — no coming inside the house with a wet bathing suit. Guess which rule Anna and Maya repeatedly try to break so they can talk to Brandt?
• Maya singing Three 6 Mafia while getting ready for the pool party was one of the episode’s highlights.

All seven episodes of PEN15 season 2 are now streaming on Hulu.