"Andrea" by Luhrman
What do we know of Andrea, the "gothic chick," of Lawndale? She was introduced in "Cafe Dissifecto," giving her poem at the coffee house. In "Fair Enough" she was telling off Upchuck; in "Daria Dance Party," she was telling Brittany that the men of Lawndale High were " gaining their senses," and it "Too Cute" asking Quin, when asking for donations for her plastic surgeory, if she was "just a little worried that there might be a hell."
Then, in the fourth season, Mart of Darkness came. Andrea showed she thought, basically, that both Daria and Jane were... well... jerks (go ahead, cut me up like you do everyone else). Daria then said something like, "I'm just looking for a shoelace." Then her and Jane made similar remarks to the effect of "we never saw each other," and we saw Andrea smiling as they walked away.
This episode could have made Andrea a consistent character. At this point, she could have joined the Daria-Jane friendship. However, this did not happen in the following episodes, and I believe I know why it didn't happen after the fourth season, more specifically, the last episode of season four.
In "See Jane Run" we saw that Andrea has a locker close to Daria's. In DDMD, after the "kiss" Daria and Jane were walking down the hall, and it was by her locker that Daria blurted out about "the Tom thing." I believe at this point that Andrea lost all respect she may have had for Daria, at least, carried over from MOD. The next time she would have a speaking part is in "Is It College Yet," when she left Jodie's party to go somewhere with Upchuck.
It would have been great for the show if Andrea did gain that more active role. In "Fire," we might have seen Daria subtly bring her problems privately to Andrea, and in IIFY we might have seen Andrea's family, and an insight to her mind, probably in arguement with Daria.
I'd appreciate feedback, as this is my first essay. Still please send feeback if I ever write 50 of these, but you get the idea. Also, this was written in Nov. 2005, just in case anyone was looking for something recent.