When Natalie Portman as “Alice” in Closer delivered her infamous line, “Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off,” she undoubtedly meant it to include shoplifting. For it is a form of lying, to be sure. As well as the ultimate “angsty” white girl crime (ranging from misdemeanor to felony, depending on the dollar amount stolen and the particular severity of the state)–just ask Winona Ryder and Lindsay Lohan. But for Elodie Davis (Brianna Hildebrand, an aesthetic lovechild of Audrey Hepburn and Rachael Leigh Cook), shoplifting is about so much more than “fun.” It’s a psychological salve, an antidote, a numbing agent–all much needed in the wake of her mother’s death in a car accident (drunk driver, of course) while Elodie was in the front seat.
Forced to move from New Mexico (in the book, it’s Idaho) to Portland, where her father, Doug (Larry Sullivan), is remarried to a less “bohemian” woman named Jenna (Dana Green), who has a son of her own named Spencer (Parker Hall), Elodie isn’t exactly “enticed” by the promise of Portland “grit,” relegated instead to its Lake Oswego suburb. Based on the book by beloved screenwriter Kristen “Kiwi” Smith (who gifted us with such film adaptations as 10 Things I Hate About You [fittingly, in Trinkets, Larisa Oleynik makes a cameo], Legally Blonde and Ella Enchanted), Trinkets is quick to point out that just because someone “neatly” fits into one social group, doesn’t mean they truly identify or feel comfortable in it. But that’s how high school works, you simply take what you can get as a means to avoid any additional social complications.
For Elodie, that initial “taking what she can get” person is Rachelle (Haley Tju), a not quite full-fledged nerd trying to make her junior year a transitioning opportunity into a new social stratum. Elodie, on the other hand, is content to remain a wallflower, making the assumption that there’s no hope for her with regard to meeting any real friends. This supposition is challenged when she encounters Tabitha Foster (Quintessa Swindell)–who defies the “white girl shoplifter” cliche–and Moe Truax (Kiana Madeira) at a Shoplifters Anonymous meeting in Downtown PDX (a nickname for Portland almost as annoying as “Chi Town” for Chicago). Having already conveniently stereotyped them as “popularity queen” and “burnout” (oh, how The Breakfast Club always comes back when high school tropes are involved), Elodie is as surprised to see them there as the other two–once childhood friends–are surprised to see each other.
And yet, making presuppositions about people, even Tabitha, is something Moe ought to know better than to do. For as she describes in the book version of Trinkets from her perspective about how she became branded as a “burnout,” “[Alex] assumed because I dress the way I do, I belonged in their social circle… Next thing I know, I was being introduced by Alex to her friends as her hilarious friend Moe. That was the beginning of freshman year and that’s the person I’ve stayed ever since. Before that, I was friends with losers…” Perhaps because, despite her “rogue” sartorial choices, Moe is actually a brain. Granted, being the “rebel” on the fringe isn’t too much a step above “dweeb” or “loser” in the eyes of the popular kids generally consisting of jocks like Brady Finch (Brandon Butler), Tabitha’s abusive boyfriend, and Noah Simos (Odiseas Georgiadis), the boy Moe has been having a secret tryst with ever since they started working together at the same restaurant.
Thus, while these three so-called “archetypes” of high school seemingly couldn’t have less in common, it’s precisely because they are each so hemmed in by their appearance and the pigeonholing that comes with it that they feel an inherent connection to one another’s respective state of being misunderstood. That, and the shared interest/secret shame of shoplifting.
So it is that in the pilot episode, “Mirror Faces” (named in honor of what Tabitha calls the expressions people make in the mirror in order to convey how they want to be seen by the world), they challenge one another to a “shoplift-off” upon finding themselves in the same department store after their SA meeting. It is Moe who starts to warm (if that can be the overstatement word used) to Elodie first, cautioning her of the town, “The people suck, too. Everyone’s obsessed with keeping Portland weird. It’s oppressive.” “Life’s oppressive,” Elodie returns. Moe burns her with, “That why you steal?” The two then catch Tabitha at a counter, looking the same way Elodie does at these little “trinkets” that might–for just a moment in time–give her the rush she needs to forget her inner turmoil. For Moe, it’s a different story altogether that gets unveiled as season one progresses.
As for the second and final season, the bond the trio forged (cemented by getting a small triangle tattoo on their wrists at a party) is stronger than ever, especially after Moe and Tabitha briefly grapple with Elodie’s “disappearance” when her father threatens to send her away to rehab for her continued inability to stop shoplifting in the finale of season one.
Alas, the main drama of season two isn’t quite as compelling, involving a stolen math test and a motive for stealing it that just doesn’t stand up considering that Moe is typically so unflappable when it comes to being threatened. It is, instead, the subtler aspects of the storytelling (for instance, the racist implications when Tabitha is stalked inside of a store by its middle-aged “Karen” of an owner–convinced she’s going to steal something) that make the second installment of the show feel more nuanced.
Despite the occasionally vexing plot device of the stolen math test, the primary quality that makes the show so watchable remains intact–and that is, of course, the unique friendship these three incredibly different girls share (in some strange, Bizarro World way, they’re like a non-witch version of Charmed). And, by the end, you feel as though you’ve been on the journey with them–witnessing their highs and lows with the same indelible soundtrack to punctuate the mood. It is also at the denouement that the viewer realizes: maybe shoplifting–ergo lying–isn’t the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off.
