“Class of ’07” is all about surviving among the most distressing of situations. The situation need not be overtly serious or dramatic. Women help other women survive on the school premises, which has become an island thanks to a natural calamity that submerges all the land around it. The women who attended the reunion party hoped they could spend one night talking about themselves; it doesn’t matter if there was an iota of truth to any of it, they would love to brag about themselves and live in the moment, hoping never to run into each other again for the next ten years. The women present at the reunion were good friends who made pinky swears ten years ago. But time has passed, and all of them have moved on to do better things in life. The reunion was the only way to reconnect and relive their friendships, but nature had other plans. Written, directed, and created by Kacie Anning, here, the writers are very much interested in bringing out the worst in a woman to the world watching the show. The woman is not painted as a superhuman who can never have a mean cell in her body. Give Kacie Anning and many other writers this premise, and they will put forward a show that will change your perception of what a woman should be.
The focus of this show is on many women from different walks of life who have now descended on their school after a decade they’d left it, hoping to relive their school days. But as a matter of fact, none of them want to relive their school days because not one of them has had a good time studying in this convent run by the church. Most of them have had difficulty living through the years they spent here. Most of them do not have good memories attached to it, but not one of them is willing to talk about it, keeping in mind they are here celebrating only for a night. With nature having a mind of its own, all of them wind up stuck on the school premises for a long time, not knowing when help will arrive to rescue them. Since no one comes to save them, all the women must save themselves if they don’t want to die. They have people they want to get in touch with, but there is no way that is possible. Many characters come across as people who can be helpful in making sure the gang remains calm and composed. Genevieve hopes she could be the one who could handle the group, but it turns out her management skills lead to even more chaos because none of them are willing to follow her instructions.
This is why the women turn to Saskia, who is not just an entrepreneur now, but comes across as a person who has completely changed. Her work as a businesswoman helps empower women in general, and all of them are impressed by how much she has changed. She is one of the characters that left a deep impression on viewers of “Class ’07” because, from the beginning of the reunion party, Saskia comes across as someone who has her life sorted, and she educates all the women about her work. She was also considerate of Zoe and Amelia in the beginning, but Amelia senses the woman has not changed a bit. Saskia shows her true colors when she lets Sandy drift into the water on a canoe. Zoe, who was her best friend in school, realizes Saskia is darker than she comes across, and there is no way to undo what she did. With Saskia taking charge of the work being done for the survival of everybody at the school premises, she comes across as a tyrant who is unwilling to hear the word no from anyone. She relentlessly pushes everyone to finish the job of the day. She makes sure people starve until their job is finished. Her overpowering nature has a deep psychological impact on a lot of women present at the premise. Saskia, being an entrepreneur, applies all the skills she has as a boss lady. Here, the difference is that she is not paying anyone to do the job.
Saskia claims her attitude is for the better, improving the chances of someone coming in contact with them to save them. Saskia’s sensitivity takes a back seat when a fellow woman faints. She throws a tantrum when she is confronted about her difficult behavior. Her control-freak nature is on display when she forces women to make sure their hair is tied well. Saskia has some underlying issues that surface briefly during her conversation with the injured Teresa, but she goes back to her authoritarian behavior. Amelia’s memory of Saskia being the one controlling Zoe during their school days indicates that maybe Saskia was used to controlling women around her, and the behavior is again resurfacing with her being present on the school premises. Saskia ends up talking to the makeshift therapist, who is a broom dressed in glasses and a blazer, which proves that she has underlying issues that she has not dealt with all these years.
It is when she is put on trial for her role in the disappearance of Sandy that she open-heartedly talks about how she was groomed by a pedophile teacher who pursued the minor Saskia. Being a teenager, she fell for the teacher, but the same teacher broke up with her months after she was out of school. The heartbreak had a deep impact on her. It is also shown that she placed the picture of a nun who had given her a tough time in school on a punching bag. All the bad memories from the school festered when she showed up for the reunion. All of them being stuck was reminiscent of all the horrible times she had had as a regular teenager. Her past experiences cannot be considered as a reason for her being highly inhumane to the women who are trying to survive. All the women who were at one point her classmates as well complained that she was a bully to all of them and never tried to be a decent classmate. Her bullying nature resurfaces, triggered by her memories from school. Saskia might understand her actions were wrong, and she apologizes for her behavior, but again her painful experiences cannot be used as an excuse for her being plain mean. Saskia stands down and hopes she can be a better person from here on because the people who confronted her are adults, and they have no reason to put up with her bullying from here on. Their resistance stems from the fact that it triggered plenty of awful memories from the school, most of which featured Saskia herself.
Saskia is not entirely a black or white character in the show. She is shown to have come full circle as a person who was abused and pushed to do things to her classmates, and now as an adult, she is ready for redemption, which brings an end to her arc. Hopefully, in the second season, if it is announced, she will be a composed person.
