Franky Fitzgerald, Skins UK

Franky Fitzgerald (Dakota Blue Richards)

On the fifth season of the UK teen drama Skins, Franky was introduced as an “androgynous and super-intelligent” girl who acts “strange” because of her troubled past. Before the start of the series, Franky had been living in Oxford with her new adoptive fathers, where she was regularly bullied by gang of local girls, led by a girl named Riga. In one particularly nasty incident, Riga’s gang had stripped her down to her underwear, thrown eggs and flour at her, snapped pictures of her in this condition, and posted them on the internet, leaving her tied up in a bathroom, before vandalizing her home and her father’s car. In retaliation, her troubled and somewhat thuggish only friend, Dean, had ambushed Riga outside her home and threatened to burn her alive unless she stayed away from Franky. As a result, Dean was imprisoned and Franky’s fathers had decided to move somewhere else and get a new start.

In Season 5, episode 7, Franky identifies herself as pansexual. In same episode, Franky kisses her friend Mini and then her friend Liv as part of a play. In episode 8, Franky and her friend Matty are seen to kiss and start to have sex, but stop as Franky started to have a panic attack. Later in the episode, she reconciled with Matty and they ended the season in relationship. In the next season, Franky and Matty’s relationship faced problems, and Franky started have rough sex with her drug dealer, Luke, and later, a sexual affair with her friend Nick. At the end of the season, Franky told both Matty and Nick that she loved them but she couldn’t have a relationship with either of them.

In Season 6, she loses her androgynous and passive nature in favor of a more feminine, headstrong and blunt personality. Nevertheless, a defining feature of her character is her troubled past, something that plagues her throughout the series and occasionally causes concern from her friends. Although Franky’s mental state has caused concern from her friends, particularly Liv, it is never addressed in detail.

Appearances:

• 18 episodes. 5x01 - 6x10

No female love interests

Relationship story arc with a woman: No

Male love interests:

• Matty (Sebastian de Souza, main cast)
• Nick (Sean Teale, main cast)
• Luke (Joe Cole, guest, 2 episodes)

Relationship story arc with a man: Yes

Filter Relationship Arc:

• Male (Regular)

Storyline during sweeps? No

[1] A relationship story arc is defined as explicit, developed on screen, and lasting more than 3 episodes. It is listed as questionable or subtext if romance is only implied, mentioned instead of shown on screen, part of a dream sequence, or otherwise not explicit for the viewer.
[2] Sweeps episodes air in February, May, July and November, the periods when advertising rates are set. A character is marked as "sweeps" when there is a very limited number of episodes that address their sexuality, all air during sweeps period, and the storyline is otherwise ignore/dropped.