Tear Jerker / PEN15

• In the very first episode, "First Day," Maya finds out that not only was she wrong about Dusting and Brandt crushing on her, but that they've been calling her UGIS—the Ugliest Girl in School. Of course, for thirteen-year-old Maya, this is nothing short of devastating. Even her Big Brother Bully Shuji is horrified to hear it. While Anna helps her recover her self-esteem by the end, it establishes that while a Cringe Comedy the show may be, it'll also be focusing on some of the worst parts of being an awkward teenager.
• "Posh"
  • Maya and Anna's partners on their school project are none too subtle about being racist to the Japanese-American Maya. The worst of it comes when they're playing around and goad Maya into playing the part of an Igor-like servant becaus she's "different". Poor Maya looks incredibly uncomfortable and upset with it all, but is too nervous to speak up.
  • The above experience leads to Anna stage a performance with some other students to "raise awareness" of racism. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, however, and all Maya sees is her best friend and some other classmates hurling racist insults at her.
• "Anna Ishii-Peters" sees Anna staying with Maya's family while her parents go on a couples' retreat. Though fun at first, Maya is soon overcome with jealousy as Anna and Yuki spend time together, leading to her blowing up at Anna and telling her to go home. Yuki gently tells her that Anna is going through a tough time—and she's right, because as soon as Kathy and Curtis return, they inform Anna that they're getting divorced. Maya is asleep when Anna calls after, causing Anna to think Maya is still angry at her during one of the worst moments in her life.
• "Dance"
  • Following the events of the last episode, Anna and Maya are still on bitter terms, and Maya only finds out about Anna's parents' divorce when she overhears a conversation with Heather.
  • Anna works up the courage to ask her crush Alex to dance...and his answer is a blunt "No". Then, to twist the knife further, Heather tells her that the only reason she was hanging out with Anna was because her mother told her to be nice in light of Anna's parents' divorce.
  • Maya is horrified to learn that Sam is her AIM boyfriend and runs off crying.
• "Wrestle"
  • Sam starts to pull away from his friends in favor of hanging out with Brandt's group. Gabe is gutted—and it's implied that his crush on Sam only makes it worse.
  • Brandt mocks Anna and Maya to his friends, and Sam repeats his insults while sparring with Maya later. Instead of just getting angry, or laughing it off, Maya runs off, humiliated. Sam is clearly overwhelmed with guilt.
• "Vendy Wiccany"
  • The episode starts with Kathy in Curtis getting into such a bad argument that Maya and Anna run off into the woods to escape from it.
  • Though understandably fed up with Maya's stalking, Brandt breaks Maya's heart and self-esteem both when he snaps that he hates her and that she's ugly. Maya is reduced to tears on the spot.
• "Three" introduces Maura, a classmate who pushes herself into Anna and Maya's friendship. The more time they spend with her, the more Maya and Anna adopt her toxic traits, including blatant disrespect for their mothers—but with the implication that they're lashing out about their recent rejection and the divorce, respectively. Anna in particular snaps at her mother for starting fights with her father and then playing the victim, which Kathy looks horrified to hear.
• Though spoiled, manipulative, and eager to cause trouble, it's rather sad watching Maura's breakdown when Anna discovers that Maura's amazing former friend was make-believe. She's clearly desperate to have real friends.
• "Play" shows Gabe starting to struggle with his sexuality, lying to Maya that he returns her feelings.
• "Opening Night"
  • Gabe tells Maya that he didn't feel the butterflies that she did when they kissed, ending their short relationship. Maya is left crying in the car, her heart broken by yet another boy. Worse is that, unlike Brandt, Gabe clearly does care for her as a friend, and hates that he's hurting her.
  • Anna has a heart-to-heart with her mother wherein she apologizes for lashing out at her at times, and for the pain that the divorce is putting her through. Both are crying by the end.
  • On the drive to Florida, Curtis tells Anna that he's moving out, and she'll have to decide which parent she wants to live with. Anna turns her face away so that he doesn't see her weeping.
• "Jacuzzi"
  • The girls' hopes for a relaxing, fun trip are dashed after they buy a caricature from a boardwalk artist. He draws Anna with a Gag Nose and Maya with a huge and hairy face. It makes the girls so insecure that for the rest of the episode (which is animated), they're drawn with those exaggerated features, illustrating how their self-image has been ruined.
  • Even on a vacation, the girls have to deal with rude boys: one that they meet at the club calls them "butt ugly" to his friends. This is following the above event, which already crushed their self-esteem.
  • Anna is so desperate to have fun and escape from her parents' divorce that she throws back way to much alcohol and has to be all but carried out by Maya. As this is happening, a creep from the club watches them from down the street—though he doesn't do anything, Maya is understandably freaked out.
• "Bat Mitzvah"
  • Maya is so freaked out about her family being "poor" that she begs her parents to buy an expensive diamond necklace for Becca's bat mitzvah. Seeing how disappointed her mother is, even Maya realizes that she's going too far, and tries but fails to stop Fred from getting the necklace. Then Becca doesn't even like the necklace—she says she has several of the same. Thankfully, Maya is able to take the necklace back and gifts it to her mother, but it's another example of her insecurities making her lash out.
  • As if Anna didn't have enough to worry about, discussing the Holocaust makes her question the existence of God and life itself. While Maya is having fun on the dancefloor, Anna is off to the side, struggling to keep up a smile.
• "Shadow" sees the arrival of Ume, a friend of the family the same age as Maya, visiting from Japan. Ume clearly adores Maya, but watching everyone fawn over Ume causes Maya to take her jealousy out on her. Ume finally snaps that not only is she hurt by Maya's bullying, but that the fawning Maya had been so jealous of was making Ume uncomfortable the whole time.
• "Yuki"
  • The episode opens with a glimpse at an average day in Yuki's life: struggling to cook breakfast, dealing with two demanding children (who poke fun at her for her accent), doing tedious housework. It's nothing particularly upsetting, but the implication is that Yuki feels unfulfilled in her current life.
  • Reuniting with her ex-husband elates Yuki and makes her more chipper than ever seen before. They walk, talk, and even share a dance together. Clearly, despite their estrangement, Yuki feels comfortable around her ex in a way that she hasn't in a long time. But, it's only for a day. Leaving him drunk in his hotel room, Yuki realizes both how close she was to cheating on her husband, and that she made the right choice in leaving her ex.
  • The ending of the episode gives perhaps the most poignant sequence in the show. Lying in bed, Yuki tells Fred about her experience working on a British-Japanese film. Whenever she and the other Japanese crew members ate anything remotely traditional (like raw egg over rice), their British colleagues sneered in disgust at them. This leads Yuki to confessing that she has felt trapped between two cultures for a long time—either too Japanese or too American. While she's saying all of this, we're shown a montage of actual footage and photos from Mutsuko Erskine's life. The show being created and written by her daughter adds a really meaningful layer to the scene.