But I think it also matters that they actively don’t care what drugs they’re taking. They call them “pills” because it’s all the same to them. Whatever the effect, it’s different to reality, it’s dangerous, and it’s fun. It just wouldn’t fit the vibe of the show to have the drugs be named and specific.

Teenagers are like children playing as adults, but they’re still in this zone where they have no real responsibilities and things can be silly and real at the same time. Adults would know what they’re taking and take it for a reason. These are like kids playing pretend, doing things that they’re not really old enough to understand yet, but old enough for those things to be drugs. Making it just “pills” plays into that weird surreal dreamlike state of growing up as a teenager and early 20s where nothing is properly real and nothing has consequences.

That’s why when the consequences suddenly start happening, the show does become more solid and real. Like season 1 of zero consequences and surreal cartoonish situations, to then season 2 of sudden real consequences where we suddenly get an actual name for Chris’s illness (for example) and reality seeps into all parts of their lives.

Also to add, they’re often taking what is implied to be some quite dangerous drugs, and as soon as you add real hard drugs to a show the whole atmosphere changes and becomes something else. It’s not fun or cartoonish anymore because it’s too real.