Sweet/Vicious season 1, episode 3, “Sucker,” just finished airing, and this week Jules and Ophelia get off to a rough start with their vigilante duties.

The episode starts off with a training montage of Jules teaching Ophelia how to be a vigilante. It offers some pretty hilarious scenes of Ophelia getting her ass handed to her, but by the end of the scene, she seems to be on just about the same level as Jules. It’s a bit unrealistic, but sometimes you have to suspend disbelief for the sake of the show, and I have no problems doing that here.

In another case of the week episode, we see a video of another girl, Jesse, who was raped. Again, true to life, we see that she doesn’t want anyone to know what happened to her. She feels stupid and ashamed, like she did something wrong.

Sweet/Vicious is so good at showing what a woman goes through emotionally when she’s assaulted. In so many other shows, solving the crime is the main component of the episode. This show, however, takes its time to represent the intricacies of what a person feels like when they’re violated, but it also provides closure, which is what this episode in particular tackles.

For her part, Jules hasn’t gotten closure. She sees the video of Jesse and has a panic attack. She didn’t tell any of her friends what had happened to her, and Nate is still walking around, not dealing with any of the consequences of his actions.

It must be so hard for Jules to tread the line between wanting to be a good friend to Kennedy and wanting to see her and Nate break up. It’s good to see Kennedy can take care of herself, however. When Nate wants her at his luncheon merely for the arm candy, Kennedy has no problem telling him she’s got something more important to do.

Nate’s apology in the episode seems genuine. I’m not sure where Sweet/Vicious plans to take this character, though. Will he be redeemable? Will Jules forgive him? Is rape forgivable once someone has apologized and lived out their sentence? I’m not sure what message the show will provide us with regarding Nate’s character, but I’m certainly interested in finding out.

Unfortunately for Jules, she has a lot going on in her life right now, and dealing with another rapist on campus might be the least complicated course of action. The fact that she took part in killing and hiding the body of Tyler’s stepbrother is kind of a deal breaker, but considering Tyler doesn’t know that’s why she’s pulling away from him, he’s sort of confused by her mixed signals.

First up, we’re still dealing with the fact that Carter has been missing for a week now. Ophelia has used his phone to make it seem like he’s snowboarding in Canada. Tyler admits he’s kind of relieved Carter is gone. He’s not exactly an easy guy to get along with, after all, and with the rape allegations against him, it’s a complicated and heavy situation.

“You can’t compliment me, I just punched you in the throat,” is pretty much the perfect line to sum up Jules and Tyler’s current relationship status. He touches her knee and she freaks out. We, of course, know what’s going on with her, but Tyler remains confused. In the end, she doesn’t tell him she was raped, but she does tell him she needs to take things very slowly.

Tyler is completely fine with it, and even asks if he can kiss her. She agrees, and it’s a sweet moment between the two of them. This is certainly the calm before the storm, though, because Tyler heads over to Carter’s house when a warrant has been put out for his arrest and realizes that his step-brother is not in Canada.

Ophelia does try to step up her vigilante game in this episode while Jules is dealing with Tyler and Kennedy in particular, but she ends up jumping the wrong guy and stealing his wallet as a cover. Oops? They find out that Jesse was catfished, and when they find the real person who raped her, it’s game on. He puts up a good fight, but the two of them inflict some serious damage on the unapologetic asshole.

But O’s nightly activities are taking their toll on her daily responsibilities, and Harris is getting fed up. He’s got his important paper to work on, and he can’t keep picking up her slack at the record store.

It’s hard to see Harris fire Ophelia because you know he doesn’t want to. They’re such good friends, but something has been off with her for a while now. It’s also hard to witness because you know Ophelia isn’t slacking off or disrespecting Harris on purpose. She’s doing good, important work with Jules. The only problem is that she can’t tell Harris about it. It’s a good thing Ophelia is pretty good at apologies.

Near the end of the episode we see Jules attending her therapy group. They talk about how there are always consequences for girls when they are raped. Their whole life is altered when they miss classes, have panic attacks, lose friends and credibility. But it’s different for the guys who get away with sexual assault, and it’s even different for those who may face charges, as minimal as they often are.

So, the question here is what’s the point of beating up rapists if their victims have no idea the campus is a little bit safer for them now? That’s when Jules and Ophelia orchestrate a way for Jesse to see her battered and bruised rapist across campus. It doesn’t change what happened to her, but it helps. Every little bit counts.

What did you think of ‘Sweet/Vicious’ 1×03 ‘Sucker’?