Film / Friends Til The End

Friends Til The End is a 1997 television movie that first aired on NBC starring Shannen Doherty and Jennifer Blanc.

The plot revolves around two college-aged women, the popular sorority member Heather Romley and the shy studious Zanne Armstrong, whose lives first intersect at a school dance, where the former was just crowned the queen of her sorority's sweetheart dance and the latter is covering the event as a photographer with the yearbook.

What soon follows is a tale involving jealousy, betrayal and murder. It's somewhat similar to Single White Female. Although the film first aired on NBC, it has enjoyed numerous airings over the years on Lifetime, to the point that some believe that it's one of their productions.

This film has the following tropes:

• The Ace: Hinted at with Heather: aside from her beauty and popularity, she's also a good singer and the leader if the popular college band Dead Pink, wins a sorority pageant at the beginning of the film, and is a good student to boot, even winning a scholarship to attend her college.
• Age Cut: The beginning of the film has a preteen Heather taking the stage at a talent show and singing her song. It immediately cuts to her onstage for the sorority girl contest and still twiddling her fingers in nervousness.
• All Drummers Are Animals: Averted: drummer Nick is the calmest and most soft-spoken of all the band members.
• Alpha Bitch: Paige, the head of the sorority that Heather and Zanne belong to.
• Always Someone Better: How Zanne views her place in the world.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Young Suzanne believes her mother to be this when she encourages before taking the stage at a talent show. This also extends to her adulthood, as she tries and fails to cut ties with her and pretends that she was dead.
• Armor-Piercing Question: "You want Heather?"
• Asshole Victim: Downplayed with Brad: he's clearly not the film's villain, but he still knows about Zanne killing her competitor years earlier and is turned on by it and also witnesses her pouring ipecac in Heather's drink and does nothing to stop it.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Nick. He's the friendliest male member of Dead Pink, but doesn't like others trying to harm the band, especially Heather.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Zanne. She has been carrying a grudge against Heather for years due to her beating her in a competition when they were little girls.
• Bland-Name Product: When Allison gets the news that she's not pregnant, she gets the call from a public phone booth that has a logo similar to the Bell Phone Company.
• Boulder Bludgeon: How Brad ends up dying, getting bludgeoned with a brick.
• Call-Back: Zanne sings "Beautiful Dreamer" at her singing competition as a child and at Dead Pink's competition in a battle of the bands.
• Cassandra Truth: Nick is immediately suspicious of Zanne, even telling his fellow male bandmates that there was something [wrong] about her, only for them to dismiss him as paranoid.
• Daddy's Girl: Heather is close to both her parents, but when visiting them with Zanne, she happily hugs him from behind and he appreciates the affection, holding onto her as she does.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Zanne as she claims to have although she is lying: her parents died in a plane crash when she was five, her grandfather soon followed and that she was shuttled around to foster homes for a while after that.
• Dead Guy Junior: A particularly icky downplayed version: Suzanne "Zanne" Boxer took her new surname "Armstrong" from the girl who beat her in a big competition as a child who she later killed.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Heather, due to some manipulation from Zanne, ends up plugging the music competition on sn interview in the news. Unfortunately, the news subject was about hazing in sororities and a girl was declared clinically dead. She ended up having her piece edited out, to her relief.
• Driven by Envy: What drove Zanne to gradually ruin Heather's life, having held a long grudge against her from the competition she beat her at when they were children.
• Easily Forgiven: Zig-zagged: obviously Simon and Sammy are sorry for their betrayal and Nick tells them that they shouldn't expect to be forgiven just because they're groveling, but the ending still implies that they've all made up.
• Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: Played with. When we are reintroduced to Zanne, she is seen wearing a heavy amount of eyeshadow. It soon comes out that she's the film's antagonist.
• Fake Band: Dead Pink, the college rock band that the protagonists are apart of.
• False Soulmate: Simon. He initially seems like he truly loves Heather, his college sweetheart, but once Zanne gains more confidence, bogarts herself into the band and flirts hard with him on his birthday, he engages in an affair with her which Heather was totally unaware of until she catches them in bed. He eventually comes to deeply regret his actions.
• Foreshadowing: Quite a bit between Zanne, Heather and Nick:
  • Zanne, whilst photographing Heather at the sweetheart dance, recognizes her as the girl she competed against in a pageant years earlier and decided to go after her.
  • Nick's attraction towards/loyalty to Heather was seen at the beginning. Aside from being her songwriting partner, he also defends her when the rest of Dead Pink thinks her poisoning was simply nerves and is immediately suspicious of Zanne when she first became associated with the band. He also quit the band after learning of Simon cheating with Zanne and convinces Heather to form their own band.
  • Nick's attraction of Heather wasn't one-sided; when Zanne complains that he hit on her (although she was trying to usurp her role in the band, amongst other things, and he was calling her out on it), she asks if that's a bad thing and even defends him back, saying, "I think he's sweet!"
• Good Parents:
  • Heather's parents are very loving towards her.
  • Suzanne's mother also loves her dearly, although she was erroneously portrayed as being a Stage Mom earlier in the film.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Zanne, and it's not just limited to Heather either; she even blows out a candle at the initiation ceremony of a new girl in her sorority, angering her and the other women at the ceremony.
• Heel Realization: As said by Paige:
  "We lost Heather for this?"
• He Knows Too Much: Poor Brad gets killed because he recognizes Zanne as Suzanne Boxer and knows about the murder she committed as a child. In spite of him not being freaked out by this and not giving any implications that he would blow her cover, Zanne still kills him.
• I Never: Halfway through the film, the characters play a game of this. This is where they learn about Alison's Pregnancy Scare.
• Informed Attribute: Played with regarding Sammy. His girlfriend Alison keeps going on about him apparently having a Hidden Heart of Gold and loving her, in spite of him mostly acting like a douche onscreen throughout the film. That said, even after the situation of learning of Alison's Pregnancy Scare (which he knew nothing about and was quite angry about when Paige blurted it out at the club), they did manage to work things out and continue dating. Also, at the Battle of the Bands competition, he expresses regret at allowing Zanne is push both Heather and Nick out the band, Alison is with him at the club and gives him a preemptive Smooch of Victory and the end implies that they've all made up.
• I Reject Your Reality: Zanne still holds onto the lie that she lost her parents in a plane crash as a child, even when both Brad and Heather confront her about it.
• It Will Never Catch On: In-universe. Heather tells Nick that they won't be musically successful as a duet, saying that two people don't make a band. To this, he points out a lot of successful two-person bands, including They Might Be Giants.
• Kick the Dog: After Heather catches Simon and Zanne in bed together, the latter kisses his shoulder and snuggles up with him, all to showcase her lack of remorse.
• Limp and Livid: Zanne ends up this after her breakdown and right before Heather and Nick took the stage at the battle of the bands competition; she is seen hunched over and Laughing Mad with rage only for her mother to hold her back from storming the stage.
• The Mentally Disturbed: Zanne is seen to have a mental disorder of some sort, even staying in a hospital because of it.
• A Minor Kidroduction: The film starts off with the two main characters performing at a talent show as children.
• Moral Myopia: Zanne has this and tries to invoke Never My Fault towards Heather after the latter slapped her, even trying to tell their sorority sisters that she had mental problems. This is ignoring how she stole her term paper and turned in a plagiarized paper in its place, took her car keys to meet up and make out with Simon, blabbed a secret about Alison that she had eavesdropped upon and poured ipecac into her drink to sabotage her so she could sing her lead, amongst other things.
• My Greatest Failure: Stated and implied by the remaining members of Dead Pink and Heather's sorority sisters, respectively, after choosing to keep the jealous and unstable Zanne over her.
• Never My Fault: After the fallout of Simon cheating on Heather with Zanne, he has the nerve to get mad at her for quitting Dead Pink, citing how Nick will quit too and that she's wrecking their chance to win the battle of the bands competition. She then retorts back, "You're the one that ruined it, not me!"
• Nice Girl:
  • Heather, through and through. Sadly, Zanne is willing to take advantage of her kind and giving nature, which lead to some hardship for her.
  • Alison, Heather's best friend and Sammy's girlfriend, can also be seen as this (she did briefly pull away from her in the aftermath of her slapping Zanne, though to be fair she didn't know the whole story, just what Zanne wanted her to see, but by the end she still cheers Heather on in the Battle of the Bands competition).
  • Zanne, though she soon is revealed to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
• Nice Guy: Nick, who is also something of a Dogged Nice Guy.
• Nobody Loves The Drummer: Drummer Nick gets the least amount of attention and respect of the whole band, even as the one who writes the songs. Even Zanne is dismissive of him when she first joins. Not that this bothers him too much.
• Precision F-Strike: When Nick and Heather are at the competition and she nervously asks if they're going to do well, he assures her that "you're going to blow that bitch away."
• Pregnancy Scare: Alison has one after she slept with Sammy after the Sweetheart Dance. She had confided in Heather, but unfortunately Zanne had overheard this, blabbed to Paige and the other sorority sisters and blew the poor girl's cover, allowing Heather to take the blame.
• Removed from the Picture: At one point, Zanne uses an X-acto knife to cut Heather's head out of a photograph of her and Simon dancing. Heather eventually discovers it—with Zanne's own head taped on her body—and comes to the horrifying conclusion, "You were after me from the beginning."
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The act of betraying Heather by reducing her role so Zanne can sing more leads causes Nick to quit the band in disgust, even commenting "This is not the band I signed up for!"
• Shout-Out: While rehearsing at Simon's house, there's a poster of Mazzy Star on the wall.
• Staircase Tumble: This is how the girl who beat Zanne in a big competition when they were children, who is only identified by the name of "Armstrong", died (via a broken neck).
• Start My Own: Heather and Nick form their own two person band after quitting Dead Pink.
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Nick is immediately suspicious of Zanne when she first joined the band. He also tries to get her to abandon any ideas of replacing Heather as lead singer and even attempts to tell Simon and Sammy about her motives as well, only for them to dismiss it. Turns out, he was right along, prompting both he and Heather to eventually quit the band.
• Token Good Teammate: Aside from Heather herself, Nick is the only one who cares about the band and its members and remains loyal to it, even quitting in disgust after Heather is pushed out of the band. Sammy's a jerk. Simon cheated on Heather. Zanne usurped her role, slept with Simon and is certifiable. Videographer Bryan is a downplayed example: he's not as vicious as the others, but he's also quite distant from Heather and never defends her.
• Unconventional Food Usage: Discussed in a conversation between Heather and Paige. While the former is grossed out by the story, the latter talks about a past roommate of hers who used to condition her hair with mayonnaise whose smell got so bad to the point of making her gag. Whereas the unknown woman defends herself by saying, "Well, don't I have the right to use conditioner?", to which she replies. "Well, don't I have the right to hate mayonnaise?"
• Undying Loyalty:
  • Nick for Heather, as we soon find out, even over the rest of Dead Pink.
  • Zanne's estranged mother, Christy, also truly loves her daughter, even staying by her side in spite of her murdering two people.
• [Verb] This!: When Heather is storming into Zanne's room, Paige protests this, saying that it violates the sorority house rules, to which she brilliantly replies back, "Violate yourself, Paige!"
• Vomit Discretion Shot: Heather gets sick to the point of vomiting after Zanne pours ipecac into her drink so that she could sing lead at a competition for the band.
• Villainous Breakdown: Zanne suffers an epic one towards the climax culminating in a breakdown on stage.