[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Geek Girl Season 1.] Geek Girl , based on Holly Smale’s novel of the same name , finds Harriet Manners ( Emily Carey ) balancing two vastly different worlds. One day, she’s just a teenager in a small town, and the next she’s thrust into the world of high fashion modeling after being discovered on a school trip.
Throughout the first season of the Netflix series, Harriet tries to navigate her new life while not forgetting her old one. Toby (Zac Looker) has been a friend of Harriet’s for as long as they can remember. He’s always been a constant in her life.
When Harriet is feeling lost and unsure of her future, she turns to her longtime neighbor. In a monumental scene from Episode 9, Harriet asks Toby if he’s ever felt “out of place,” like a “polar bear in a rainforest.” Harriet admits she feels “alone” in the world, but Toby stresses to her that she’s not.
Taking her mention polar bears and creating the perfect metaphor, Toby explains to Harriet that it’s okay to be her true self, no matter what anyone else says. “It’s quite similar to the scene in the book, and we went through a couple of iterations of it,” Looker told TV Insider about that heartfelt scene between Toby and Harriet. “The version that we did was pretty much what me and Emily just kind of changed around and wrote on the day that just felt right in the moment.
We tried to stay close to the essence of the scene in the book, and I fe.
