The Academy

As Audre prepares for Family Weekend, she gets an email from Worth. In addition to being the head of school at Northmeadow, he is also the chairperson for the ISNEC, a group formed by heads of school to create community amongst the prep schools. Worth informs her that the ISNEC is “formally” looking into the rankings to see if Tiffin violated any rules to earn their number two ranking.

Charley goes to the welcome tent to see her mother and is surprised when several students greet her: Davi’s best friend Olivia, Madison J., Tilly, and Taylor. However, Charley then sees that her mother brought Joey, which has drawn the attention of her female classmates. Charley angrily leaves, then texts her mother, insisting that she does not want to see Joey.

To hide, Charley goes to the library. In the bathroom upstairs, she is shocked to hear someone else come in. She hears the girl vomit into the toilet. Charley sees that it is Davi but hides instead of coming out. After Davi goes, Charley gets a message from her mother promising to meet her alone for dinner. Charley agrees.

Davi does her best to avoid her parents. They have brought Saylem, the creative director of their company, who Davi recently learned is in a romantic relationship with both of her parents. Davi is annoyed that Saylem is constantly around the house, and she blames her for “luring” both of her parents into a polyamorous lifestyle. This has led Davi to become bored and annoyed with fashion and her social media world.

Simone and Mr. James lead the parents to the top of the chapel, where they have a view of the entire campus. She spots East entering the basement of Classic North.

Simone enters the tunnel again and yells for East. He suddenly appears before her, holding his hand behind his back. She presses him to hand over what he is hiding: a tape measure. When she asks what he’s doing, East kisses her. Instead of pulling away, Simone kisses him back, then puts her hand on his jeans. This time, East is the one who stops. He tucks in his shirt and collects himself, then disappears down the tunnel.

Vikram, Davi’s father, wonders about Davi’s mental health. He is as bothered by Saylem as she is. However, because his wife, Ruby, controls their company, he feels as though he has to go along with it. That night, he plans to sleep in a separate hotel room. He tells Ruby that he wants to go to a mental health presentation on campus, but she shuts him down, arguing that Davi’s classmates will think Davi is struggling.

At dinner with her mother, Charley is cold and distant. To Fran’s relief, Rhode introduces himself and praises the work Charley is doing in English class.

Big East receives a message from Audre that Family Weekend went well. They raised a record amount of money. Big East typically goes, but this year he was in Japan for work.

At the end of the weekend, Audre emails the parents, thanking them for a successful Welcome Weekend. She thinks of how much money they earned, how their sports teams won, and how only three parents came to the mental health presentation, which means that almost all the parents are happy with their children’s mental health. Most importantly, due to Big East’s absence, she was able to take full credit for all the improvements at the school.

Audre receives another email from Worth. This one warns the heads of school in ISNEC about a new app called “Zip Zap.” It allows users to post anonymously while restricting access to a five-mile radius. It encourages users to vote for their favorite post to give them more prominence.

As Audre dismisses the email as alarmist, Cordelia knocks on her door. She shows her the Zip Zap app, which already has a post. It accuses Cordelia of admitting students based on their looks while pointing out that she has never been married. Audre laughs it off, telling Cordelia to let the app “run its course” like a “virus” (197). Cordelia expresses her concerns to Honey, but Honey tells her to just ignore it.

The next day, a Zip Zap post claims that Annabelle Tuckerman, who talked about three near-death experiences in her senior speech, fabricated the story. When Annabelle reads the post, she is shocked that someone could know that. The only person who knows is her mother. Now, Annabelle wonders if she should continue to lie and claim her speech is true.

While meeting about the next issue of the ‘Bred Bulletin, Ravenna is excited about the Zip Zap app. She is optimistic that she can investigate the posts and discover the identities of the writers.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Charley and East meet in the tunnel to renovate the bomb shelter. Although Charley knows she is attracted to East, she keeps reminding herself that he is only using her for her intelligence.

One Tuesday, East makes a comment about liking Charley’s hair down instead of up in braids. She promises to wear it that way if East participates in history class. When East moves close to her, she is sure that he is going to kiss her. Panicking, she turns off the light and insists that they need to go.

Thursday afternoon, the ‘Bred Bulletin members meet. Ravenna tells them that she has tried several times to post on the Zip Zap app, as have her friends, but none of them have been able to do so. She wonders who could be making the posts while also hijacking the app to stop others from posting.

That Thursday, Charley carefully showers and leaves her hair down. However, when she should be meeting with East, he messages her to tell her that he is getting help with schoolwork from Simone. Annoyed, Charley thinks that she showed too much “interest” in East and now he is backing away.

East and Simone meet in her room. Earlier, Simone had warned East that he currently has a grade of zero. She tries to get him to meet in the library or the Grille, but he insists that he needs to come to her room for help. As soon as East walks in, he locks the door and shuts off the lights. East begins kissing Simone, then touches her breasts. He puts her onto her desk then performs oral sex on her. When Simone orgasms, East thanks her for the help with the material then walks out the door.

Overwhelmed with guilt, Simone waits several minutes in her room, chastising herself for not stopping East. When she goes outside, she runs into Rhode, who was in his room working with a student. Rhode asks Simone out on a date, but she declines. She again wonders how much he knows.

The next post on Zip Zap is about Chef Haz on Friday morning. It claims that Haz lost a lot of money betting on sports the night before. Although Haz knows that the students are aware of his betting, he wonders how anyone could know that he lost $2,500 on the Thursday night NFL game.

To Rhode’s surprise, Simone changes her mind about the date and agrees to go out on Saturday. Simone agrees to it because she is hoping that Zip Zap will post about it. This will get East to leave her alone.

Rhode drives Simone into Vermont in an expensive car that he rented just for the date. They go to a small cottage on a lake: the vacation home of a couple who works at the school. Rhode paid Haz $1,700 to make them dinner and for an expensive bottle of champagne and wine.

Throughout the night, Simone drinks most of the champagne and a large glass of wine. Rhode can see that she is getting increasingly drunk, but he is overwhelmed by how much he has to do for dinner. He serves caviar and beef wellington. Realizing how drunk Simone is, Rhode decides to make his move before it is too late, so he invites Simone to dance.

As they dance, Rhode asks Simone about seeing East in the tunnel with her. To avoid the question, Simone kisses him. He then touches her breasts. Simone leads him to the couch, then vomits into his lap.

For the rest of the night, Rhode comforts Simone while she continues to vomit into the toilet. He is annoyed about how drunk she got and how much money he spent.

The night before Hakeem leaves for a recruiting trip, he tries to pressure Taylor into having sex for the first time. She refuses, insisting that she isn’t ready.

Hakeem goes to Dub’s room to talk about it. Dub is surprised, as Hakeem has continued to be distant with him. Dub confesses that he and Cinnamon never had sex either. Hakeem tells him that he is visiting Dartmouth, and a girl there is interested in him. Dub is shocked that Hakeem would consider cheating on Taylor.

As soon as Hakeem is gone, Taylor messages Dub and asks him to go to dinner. Although Dub has been keeping his distance since his fight with Hakeem, he agrees. They sit and talk about the spring musical. Mr. Chuy, the director, chose Mean Girls. Taylor hopes to get the role of Cady.

The two then go to Piano Night at the Grille. Surprising himself, Dub sings along to all the music and even does a duet of the song “Shallow” with Taylor. After, he wonders why he has been avoiding Piano Night all year.

When Dub drops Taylor off at the dorm, she confesses to him that Hakeem tried to have sex with her. She is insistent that she does not want to have sex with Hakeem. Dub changes the subject, then returns to his own room.

That night, Dub gets a message from Taylor. She tells him that she wants to lose her virginity to him. Although Dub doesn’t respond, he doesn’t delete the message either.

For the rest of the week, Dub and Taylor continue to hang out, but Dub is careful not to touch her or bring up her message.

On Saturday, Hakeem returns to school. That morning, a new message on Zip Zap claims that Taylor wants to lose her virginity to Dub.

That afternoon, the football team plays one of their toughest opponents. Before the game, Coach Bosworth speaks to Hakeem and Dub. He asks if they’re going to have issues, but both insist that they are fine. Hakeem then tells Dub that he doesn’t care what Dub does, as he had sex with the girl from Dartmouth.

At the same time, Dub notices that Hakeem is different. He smells of alcohol and has puffed-up eyes. Then, during the game, he drops two crucial passes. Tiffin loses 7-0.

After Olivia repeatedly begs Davi to go to Olivia’s home in Boston for Thanksgiving, Davi finally relents. She used to go home with Cinnamon, as she never had enough time to go back to London, and her parents don’t celebrate Thanksgiving anyway.

The entire week, Davi is annoyed by Olivia’s obsession with her, even referring to her as a “stalker.” Olivia monitors what Davi eats, who she talks to, and desperately tries to get Davi to put Olivia’s home on social media. However, Davi largely ignores her.

The night before Thanksgiving, Olivia takes Davi to a popular club nearby. At the door, however, the bouncer refuses to let Olivia enter the club. When Davi is allowed in, she contemplates, then declines, instead going across the street for pizza with Olivia.

On Thanksgiving Day, Davi finally gets some semblance of contentment when they go to a restaurant with a buffet for dinner. While Davi loads up her plate, Olivia and her mother eat very little while judging Davi.

That night, Davi decides to check in with her parents. To her surprise, her father is in London, but her mother is in Kentucky. She calls her mother, who went to Saylem’s house for Thanksgiving.