Eye Candy is an American cyber drama, airing on MTV starting January 2015, created by Catherine Hardwicke and Christian Taylor, based on R. L. Stine's novel Eye Candy. It was picked up for a 10-episode first season, but was then canceled.
The series centers on Lindy Sampson, who is a hacker and has run afoul of the law previously. She witnessed her sister getting kidnapped three years before the start of the series proper, and as a result marshals her skills and resources, legal and illegal, in a manner like that of The Equalizer, to help people find lost family or friends. Failing that, she at least tries to get justice for them if they're killed.
However, very quickly on, the series premise gains an ongoing plot arc involving a stalker and serial killer who has fixated on Lindy for some reason.
This show provides examples of:
- Adaptation Dye-Job: In the original novel, Lindy is a 5'11" blonde. Victoria Justice is 5'5" and brunette.
- Awesomeness by Analysis:
- Lindy is shown, in-verse, making mental connections in ways that allow her to make rapid deductions. For example, in Episode 3, she almost immediately deduces that the killer sees imperfections in the victims as reasons to kill them.
- And in Episode 4, "YOLO", she exploits her knowledge of social media culture to be able to reconstruct how five teenagers spent their night before disappearing in the early hours of the morning, and do so faster than the cops would have been able to.
- Awkward Kiss: Inverted in episode 7, "SOS" Lindy and Tommy are posing as a couple to who've rented one of the apartments being used for a voyeur website. They're so awkward and stiff it's hilarious - until Tommy is notified that the voyeur cameras are online, and he reaches for Lindy. Tommy and Lindy's kisses are slow and soft, coming across as not only absolutely real but natural; (Lindy's sort-of boyfriend, who's also watching the feed, obviously thinks so) the kisses are actually the only part of the entire undercover act that doesn't look awkward as hell. Probably because of the very UST that makes them so uncomfortable acting like a couple in the first case!
- The Big Damn Kiss: In "IRL":Connor: (to a bar patron) You just punched my date.
[Picks up Oliver, dusts off his suit, then plants a big smooch on his lips] - Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Jake acts like a friend and then love interest for Lindy, to the point they have sex, aiding her in the hunt for the killer. Then it turns out he is the killer.
- Bound and Gagged: Lindy is victim to this in Episode 7, "SOS". Lindy would have also been branded had Tommy not come to her rescue. Also in A4U, Sophia lies bound and gagged in the back of a black van, as part of Jake's 're-run' of Sara's kidnapping.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: At the climax of "A4U", Tommy has Jake at gunpoint, all while Lindy is being held as hostage. Lindy then tells Tommy that she loves Jake in order to keep the former from being hurt. Tommy is taken aback by Lindy's confession and the two escape.
- The Chessmaster: Jake, aka the Flirtual Killer. When you watch FYEO and then look back at his actions during the previous eps, it's really quite amazing how cleverly he plays with time to give himself false alibi's. Not to mention how he covers himself - for example, deliberately getting knocked over by that cyclist to explain the bruises from his unsuccessful attack on Catherine.
- Cop Killer: Ben, a police officer, is the first onscreen victim of the killer.
- Damsel in Distress: Lindy's best friend Sophia is kidnapped and held in a Death Trap she has to rescue her from.
- Death Seeker:
- All but signposted from the start by Sophia's old friend Tessa. Once she finds out that The Flirtual Killer is stalking Lindy - and 'likes to target the people around me', she signs up with Flirtual herself, wearing Lindy's jacket and purposely starts dating Lindy's original matches. She desperately wants to die before her brain tumor kills her - and TFK grants her wish. Her final words are 'thank you.'
- Also, Reese, aka DriveTime. Offering to let someone murder you for money is a pretty good indicator.
- Depraved Bisexual: The killer murders both men and women after having met them on an online dating site after finding them attractive though dishonest on aspects of themselves. Calligan thus describes him as an "equal opportunity" serial killer due to this.
- Et Tu, Brute?:
- Both Lindy and her roommate, Sophia, treat Ben, the police officer, this way regarding Lindy having been arrested and sentenced to six months probation. It is since revealed in "AMA" that Ben was likely doing this to protect her from being caught in the fallout of the sting operation on Bubonic.
- Prior to the reveal, when Ben takes off Lindy's ankle bracelet back in the pilot, he pretty much says outright that he reported her before she took a job offer doing something illegal with her hacking skills (and given that he is a detective in the Cyber-crimes unit, he didn't have much choice). If you listen carefully to Lindy and Bubonic in the ep IRL, it's clear that Bubonic was the one who made that job offer.
- Connor comes in for this after he blogs about the Flirtual killer with sensitive information he could only have gotten by being very close to the investigators and Lindy.
- Everything Is Online:
- Whatever Lindy needs to find, she can usually do so through a computer.
- Inverted for the climax of YOLO; when Lindy and Tommy are looking through the derelict ship, they already know nothing wireless will work. Tommy makes a comment about going 'old school', and breaks the glass over the ship blueprints/map framed on the wall.
- Freudian Excuse: Jake claims to have ended up as a Serial Killer due to the Murder-Suicide his parents had died in. However, it turns out he had murdered his mother, provoking his father to kill himself afterward.
- Friend on the Force: Sergeant Catherine Shaw, who runs the Cybercrime Unit.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision:
- In "IRL", Lindy has to choose between nailing a black-hat hacker who tormented her police partner, Tommy, or being able to avert an explosion which would level an entire dance club.
- To make it even more interesting, if you listen closely to Lindy and Bubonic's dialogue, it's clear they already know each other (for a start, Bubonic takes off his mask) and if you remember exactly what Ben said to Lindy in the pilot as he took off her ankle monitor? It's pretty clear that Bubonic made the job offer that got Lindy put on probation in the first place!
- In FYEO, Tommy manages to successfully unmask Hamish as the operator of the Babylon Portal, which could lead to shutting down prostitution, sex slavery rings, as well as all sorts of illegal activities (possibly. there's probably some severe chain of evidence issues). However, Hamish offers a deal: Tommy sends out the 'execute' command to wipe out the Babylon portal - and all evidence against Hamish - and he'll hand over a vital clue to the identity of the Flirtual Killer. Tommy types 'execute'. In all fairness, Hamish keeps his part of the deal magnificently, and at this point, Tommy has no clue that a) Catherine's awake b) she actually managed to identify TFK during his attack on her and c) she didn't develop short-term amnesia due to being hit by a truck during her escape.
- Hidden Villain: Jake may not be the one pulling the strings behind the murders as revealed in "A4U".
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Tessa, who's dying of a brain tumor, makes herself a target of the killer and even begs him to kill her, saying she can't do it herself. He grants her wish.
- Idiot Ball: Connor (and by extension Sophia) comes in for this in a major way at the end of ep 5. Oliver announces in public, at a party that's almost guaranteed to draw out the Flirtual killer, that he knows something that can identify said killer. (Keep in mind that this killer has already shown that he has Lindy and her friends on near constant surveillance.) Connor lets him go back into the deserted club alone. The very next ep shows him complaining to Sophia that he hasn't seen Oliver since the party... and it doesn't click for either him or Sophia that maybe something's actually happened to the poor guy? Lindy gets a minor one in the same ep for hearing said announcement and not immediately escorting Oliver to the police. In her defense, all the nearby cops are in the middle of an undercover operation, and she's immediately distracted by the whole ticking bomb thing...
- Indy Ploy: Lindy gets herself into the ICU without raising suspicion by having George alter hospital records to "diagnose" her with a suitably shocking condition, and adding extra verisimilitude by "fainting" in front of the intake nurse.
- It Works Better with Bullets: In the series finale when Jack's cornered and draws a gun, he finds its empty because Lindy had removed all the bullets beforehand.
- Jerkass:
- Hamish is the wealthy owner of a webzine. He also doesn't seem to mind being allied with cyber-terrorists. He didn't get a million dollars stolen from him by Bubonic Plague, he actually loaned Bubonic the money! So arguably, Hamish knew all along what was happening with the 'game'; presumably he didn't know about the bomb in the basement, or that it was connected with how much of that money was gone.
- As of 'FYEO', Hamish is also revealed as the operator of the Babylon Portal, an online haven for all things depraved and illegal.
- MacGyvering: In "IRL":George: I took the wireless router used by the club's credit card point of sale system, and with a minor adjustment, voila. One-directional wi-fi antenna.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: "Babylon" is an in-verse Expy for sites like the Silk Road.
- The Reveal:
- As of "FYEO", Jake Bolin is revealed to be the Flirtual Killer.
- Also, Connor's boss Hamish as the owner/operator of the Babylon Portal
- Self-Made Orphan: In "A4U", it's revealed that Jake killed his drugged up mother when he was younger, and soon afterwards, Jake's father killed himself out of grief.
- Sequel Hook:
- Of sorts. At the end of IRL, Bubonic Plague gets away easily after pulling some downright extreme shit, and after revealing connections with both Lindy and Hamish.
- In FYEO, Catherine reveals that her niece was kidnapped and enslaved. Catherine also says that the perps were never caught. If there's a season 2, what other kind of case could bring Lindy back to the Cyber-Crimes Unit?
- In the closing moments of "A4U" Lindy gets to see some security camera footage of after her sister's abduction. Sara and her boyfriend faked her kidnapping and subsequent disappearance - not for kicks, but to somehow keep the two of them and Lindy safe.
- Serial Killer: Lindy and co. hunt the Flirtual Killer, who's murdered many people whom he's attracted to. It turns out that he's Jake, who also is quite into Lindy.
- Short-Runner: It was cancelled after its first season.
- Slashed Throat: The killer murders multiple victims by this method.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Played with for Ben Miller. In the novel, he died a year previously, and Lindy is urged to go on Flirtual to help her recover from losing him. In the series, he dies at the end of the first episode.
- Stalker with a Crush: The serial killer who's been intruding into Lindy's life.
- Swiss-Cheese Security: For a hacker, Lindy's own computer protections seem to be easily bypassed, as evidenced by how easily a serial killer gets access to her webcam to see her face.
- Techno Babble:
- Invoked to some extent in "IRL" when describing a black-hat hacker's activities.
- Tommy lapses into minor cases of this a couple of times... probably to illustrate that as a detective in the Cyber-Crimes Unit he does in fact know how to do this stuff too, and also that Lindy's that much better by comparison.
- Weirdness Magnet: Lindy's life. Justified in that a serial killer has fixated on her.
- Wham Episode: "AMA". And how! Same goes for "FYEO" and "A4U".
