"It was fucking beautiful. Then it went too far."
Dare Me is a miniseries airing on USA Network, based on the book of the same name.
In the small town of Sutton Grove, new cheerleading coach Collette French has arrived to help whip the local high school's cheerleading squad into shape. This brings her into conflict with former Captain Beth Cassidy, who is used to running the quad her way and resents French's efforts to fix things. Caught in the middle is Addy Hanlon, Beth's best friend, who sees in Collette her ticket to glory.
This miniseries contains examples of:
- Adaptation Distillation: In the first episode, Beth takes a picture of Coach French and Sarge Will obviously naked in his car. This is a much-simplified version of what happens in the book: Beth herself seduces Sarge Will, as part of her competition with RiRi, and has Tacy take a picture. Because in the book Beth and Coach French are both dark-haired, and the picture only shows Beth's head and cheer jacket, not her face, Matt French is fooled into believing it's Coach in the picture.
- Affair? Blame the Bastard: Beth blames her half-sister Tacy for her own broken home, believing that if Tacy hadn't been born, Tacy's mom would have remained a sidepiece rather than becoming Beth's stepmom.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: In "Scorched Earth", Tacy and her friends steal beer and get drunk enough that she ends up having to get Bert to bail her out.
- Alpha Bitch: Since SGHS' football team is not very distinguished, the cheerleading squad seems to be the most powerful clique. And Beth rules that clique with an iron fist.
- Ambiguously Gay: Beth seems way more interested in best friend Addy than in any boy. Even when she is with a boy, she tells him she isn't interested in his genitals.
- Ambition Is Evil: Defied in "Code Red", where Coach French openly encourages her girls to compete to replace RiRi when she gets injured. She's even delighted when Brianna starts gunning for Addy's part of the routine."Never feel guilty for wanting things."
- Armored Closet Gay: "Containment" reveals the origins of the tension between Addy and Beth - some time before the events of the series, Addy kissed Beth, but withdrew after realizing that her mother would not approve, and has been freezing Beth out ever since to try and avoid a repeat of the incident.
- Armor-Piercing Response: Addy's answer when Beth demands to know what it is about Coach that has caused Addy to choose her over Beth: "She isn't you."
- Ate His Gun: Sarge Will killed himself by putting his gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
- Bait-and-Switch: In the first episode, Beth comes home and her mother seemingly isn't around. Beth finds an opened bottle of pills and a note on the kitchen table, and runs to frantically knock on her mom's bedroom door and call for her— while it initially seems as though her mom is committing suicide, it's quickly revealed that her mom invited Beth's estranged, remarried father over for sex.
- Beta Bitch: Addy has happily played this role for Beth for a long time, enjoying being the Number Two, and still does in some ways, but cracks are starting to show. The biggest is when she refuses to drop Tacy intentionally at the first game Tacy is their Top Girl, causing Beth to later have a drunken freakout about how she doesn't have any friends anymore.
- Bully Brutality: In "Surrender at Discretion", Beth goads Tacy into a contest over who can last longer in an ice bath. Tacy nearly passes out and only Addy's intervention saves her.
- Calling Out for Not Calling: In "Fog of War", Addy's mom angrily demands to know where the hell she was during the previous night.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Coach smokes whenever she's nervous, but constantly denies it.
- Contrived Coincidence: Beth and Addy happen to go look for Beth's phone at the exact same time Coach French and Sarge Will are having a tryst. Somewhat justified, in that the spot is the place everyone in town goes when they want to do something out of the public eye (like underage drinking or cheating on their spouses), but the timing is extremely unfortunate.
- Creator Thumbprint: Young women with a passion for an intense, competitive, and demanding activity have equally intense and extremely fraught and unhealthy relationships with each other, and then everything is thrown off-kilter by a suspicious death.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Bert delights in Beth's cruel behavior.
- Dehumanizing Insult: Beth calls her half-sister Tacy "The Fetus".
- Disappeared Dad: Addy's dad disappeared sometime in the past.
- Driven to Suicide: Sarge Will kills himself after Colette ends their affair.
- Dying Town: Sutton Grove's economy has being lagging ever since its tire plant closed down. An attempt to revitalize the town by building a football stadium has also failed, exacerbating its money woes. Everyone is resigned to the fact that the only way to get out is to join the military or somehow snag a sports scholarship.
- Extreme Doormat: Beth's mom basically lets her and Bert do whatever they want.
- Green-Eyed Monster: As Addy's attraction to Colette becomes more obvious, Beth gets increasingly jealous.
- I Have No Son!: Beth at one point yells at her father to Get Out!, telling him that he should go back to his wife and daughter (not other daughter, just daughter, implicitly excluding herself), and she and her mother are not his family anymore.
- Indirect Kiss: In "Rapproachment", Beth adds some "blush" to Addy's makeup by rubbing her thumb against her own painted lips and then smudging the lipstick on Addy's temples.
- Junkie Parent: Beth's mom spends most of her time whacked out on pain pills.
- Meaningful Echo: The first sign that Addy is enamored with Coach French is that she repeats her line about "you get strong and you rise" to her brother.
- Related in the Adaptation: Tacy isn't Beth's sister in the book. (The rivalry, however, is the same; Beth doesn't like that Tacy gets the top of the pyramid.)
- Replacement Goldfish: Sarge Will decided to reignite his relationship with Colette as a way of coping with the loss of his wife.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran:
- Sarge Will shows signs of having PTSD, as much as he and his buddies try and cover it up. "Fog of War" reveals that his angst stems from his wife and unborn child being killed by a drunk driver while he was overseas.
- After getting raped by Kurtz, Beth starts suffering from bad dreams and anxiety.
- Tongue Trauma: In "Rapproachment", Beth bites her tongue at some point during a blackout, ending up with two nasty wounds on the tip.
- Tonight, Someone Dies: "Scorched Earth" was promoted as an episode in which one member of the main cast would end up dead. It turns out to be Sarge Will.
- The Tooth Hurts: RiRi has her front teeth knocked out in "Parallel Trenches" when Tacy falls on her.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Beth is a terrible influence on Addy, and seems determined to drag her down with her.
- Training from Hell: As the Regionals get closer, Coach French gets meaner (although she doesn't start out that nice anyway, since she begins by grabbing a girl's stomach and telling her to lose weight).
- Vicariously Ambitious: Colette wants to turn Addy into a star cheerleader.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- In "Rapproachment", Lana calls out Beth after her latest bout of bratty behavior causes Bert to screw Lana out of alimony.
- In "Parallel Trenches", J.J. Curtis calls out Colette for letting Tacy top the pyramid even though everyone knew that her balance wasn't good.
- In "Code Red", Sarge Will gets into it with Kurtz over his extracurricular activities.
