"Mean" debuted nearly a full two months before "Mean Girls" hit theaters, and based on the central antagonists' wardrobes, attitudes, and dyed blonde hair, you'd think it was written to serve as a much darker prequel to the film (or a less comedic sequel to 1999's "Jawbreaker"). In the episode, a seeming ingenue of a victim named Emily is revealed to have been mercilessly bullying, gaslighting, and humiliating her former friend and classmate Agnes (Lindsay Hollister). Understandably, the already-distraught Agnes becomes a suspect in the girl's murder, but she's a red herring. As it turns out, Emily's three bffs — Kelli Garner's Brittany O'Malley, Arielle Kebbel's Andrea Kent, and Rose/Kimberly McConnell's Paige Summerbee — turned on, tortured, and killed the fourth member of their clique.
As the undisputed leader of the group and the defendant most responsible for Emily's death, Brittany strikes a deal with Novak to testify against her friends and co-conspirators, and here's where things get interesting.
Though Andrea and Paige have separate attorneys, the strategy is the same: convince the jury that their underdeveloped brains, peer pressure, and a biologically-driven compulsion to conform to a group excuses or mitigates their participation in the crime. For a while, it looks as though the jury is going to fall for it, not because they actually believe the defense, but because they want to. Herein lies one of the trial's more unnerving aspects.
