Katie Cappiello's play deals with a 16 year old girl who goes out for a night on the town with three of her guy friends, who end up sexually assaulting her. This storyline serves as the basis for Joey Del Marco in the series, but while the play focuses on this single event, the show goes beyond to bring other students at Grand Army High School into the bigger picture. The show handles an array of sociopolitical issues. While the students' individual struggles differ, they're united in how those issues are related to economic, racial, and sexual politics.
The plot itself kicks off in episode 1 when a bombing takes place near the high school. The building is immediately placed on lockdown with the stress and pressure spilling over into a party that takes place later that evening. The bombing sets the stage for everything else to come in the series, as these kids deal with problems that go well beyond what they should be dealing with, and the show takes a raw approach in showing the trauma these teens experience in day-to-day life.
