Drama series set in Edinburgh University in which childhood best friends Holly and Georgia become entangled with the titular clique of students on one of their university courses, all of whom are involved in a prestigious internship scheme founded by their course lecturer, Jude, and her investment manager brother, Alistair.
The second series has Holly move to a different university after the fallout of the events of the previous series. Despite her newfound notoriety, she tries to maintain a quiet life as a regular student, but she falls into a new whirlwind of controversies involving the brewing "gender wars" at her new university.
Provides examples of:
- A Friend in Need: Much of the dramatic drive of the first season comes from Georgia's attempts to integrate herself with and then succeed at the Solasta internship, with Faye's apparent suicide and numerous other events leaving Holly convinced something is deeply wrong, resulting in her following Georgia onto the internship just to keep an eye on her. Something of a zig-zagged example as the viewer is never entirely sure whether Holly is genuinely worried or is envious of Georgia for getting the internship because she only took the Macroeconomics course because Holly wanted to. Georgia spends a lot of the season trying to push Holly away or shut her out, to the point that Holly herself wonders why she's trying to hang onto the friendship - something that gets answered in the season finale when Millie demands to know why Holly won't kill Georgia like she wants. Once the dust settles Holly appears to be building more of a friendship with Elizabeth and she and Georgia are taking tentative steps to rebuild their friendship, though Georgia doesn't appear at all in the second season.
- Arc Words: In the second series:Rayna: Sometimes lies and truth are the same thing.
- Ate His Gun: In the second series finale, Calum steals Holly's gun and turns it on himself.
- Batman Gambit: Near the end of season one, Rachel proves herself proficient at this. She reveals the location of Faye's secret apartment to Alastor, knowing he'll go there hoping to clean up all the evidence Faye had on him about Solasta's dirty business dealings. When Alastor does, he stumbles across the dead body of Rory left there after Rachel killed him - and a police officer finds Alastor standing over him, having been sent there by a phonecall from Rachel herself. Since revealing Alastor's sexual extortion wasn't enough to take him down, Rachel effectively frames him for the murder instead - and her plan would have been perfect is Alastor hadn't told Jude that Rachel took the keys to the beach house, leading to Jude calling the police and Rachel herself getting arrested shortly after she attempted to murder Georgia. She arguably also did this from the very start of the season - when Elizabeth first raises concerns to Jude that Rachel is showing a possessive interest in Holly, Jude notes that Rachel first suggested Georgia for the internship, not Holly. Elizabeth reflects that "wherever Georgia goes, Holly will follow" - or in other words, Rachel accurately read the dynamic between Holly and Georgia after only meeting them a couple of times and leveraged it to get close to Holly without causing suspicion.
- Black and Nerdy: While not especially nerdy, Louise is considered to be "the brainy one" of the clique, all of whom are very talented and accomplished.
- Chekhov's Skill: Elizabeth’s talent for researching people’s backgrounds is what tips her off that something isn’t quite right about Rachel.
- Experimented in College: Discussed when Rachel tells Holly not to sleep with Louise, because straight girls sleeping with her just to experiment depresses her.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Millie can’t understand why Holly loves Georgia and not her.
- Friendless Background: Holly, when Georgia first met her.
- I Didn’t Mean to Kill Her: Holly didn’t think that Lisa would actually jump off the pier.
- In Medias Res: The second series's fifth episode begins with Holly returning to her hometown and staying with her dad after witnessing Louise get run over. Flashbacks later show how she decided to make her way there, as her despair over Louise's death had almost completely paralysed her mentally and emotionally.
- Münchausen Syndrome: The by-proxy variant; early in the second series, Rachel discovers this in Agnes's social-worker file, presuming that she was suspected of drugging Jack and inducing his blackouts. It's revealed near the end of the series that it was actually Calum doing this to his brother, and later doing the same to his mother.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: The second series finale reveals that Calum felt like Jack was getting in the way of him having Agnes all to himself, so he planned to get rid of his own adoptive brother by destroying his life and continually gaslighting him to make him think he was a rapist and a killer.
- Parental Incest: Near the end of the second series, it's revealed that Agnes and Calum were not just adoptive-mother-and-son, but also secretly lovers.
- Put on a Bus: Most of the first series cast didn't return for the second, with only Louise and Rachel remaining as series regulars.
- The Bus Came Back: After Louise's death, Phoebe returns for one scene to encourage Holly to snap out of her despair.
- The Obi-Wannabe: Jude comes to the horrifying realization that this is what she is when Georgia inadvertently reveals that it was Jude who taught her that being raped didn't have to be such a big deal.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Maureen, Jude’s boss, who, rather than loudly and angrily chewing Jude out, calmly explains the fallout that her brother's crimes have had for the university.
- Holly's dad in the second series lets her stay with him at his house and boat without pressuring her to talk about her trauma after seeing Louise get run over before her eyes. Much later, even though she takes both his boat and his gun, he still welcomes her back with Rayna in tow.
- Sexual Extortion: A major theme of the first series. The reveal is that being "Alastor's top girl" involves being expected to sleep with him for success in Solasta. This is the biggest sign things are about to get worse for Georgia, as she is hired into Faye's old position at Solasta - foreshadowed by the other girls complaining that Georgia is very obviously unqualified to handle the Steiner account, something she confirms later herself when she euphemistically says it's 'the entertainment' she is good at. This may also be the reason that Alastor refused to promote Louise into handling the Steiner account position even though she is qualified to run it - he reveals at the end of the series that he has rationalised his actions as 'consensual sex' and couldn't continue to fool himself if he tried to get Louise, a lesbian, to sleep with him.
- Shower of Angst: Holly and Rachel share one of these after Rachel kills Rory.
- Take a Third Option: When Millie forces Holly to choose between pushing Georgia off a cliff or both of them presumably being stabbed to death, Holly takes a run at the cliff and grabs Georgia as she jumps so that they have enough momentum to clear the shoreline below and land in the sea.
- Troll: Twitcher's stock in trade in the second series.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Jude gets one of these from Maureen after Holly and Elizabeth make Fay’s video public.
- Phoebe returns in the second series to give such a speech to Holly after Louise's funeral and Holly's crippling depression as a result.
