Big Mouth: The 10 Saddest Things About Jessi

Before the Big Mouth timeline, Jessi lived a life of relative happiness — she was an excellent student, never backed down from a fight, always stood her ground against the patriarchy, but most importantly, had a loving stable home. Unfortunately for her, the timing of puberty and the divorce of her parents was a coincidence too great for her to bear.

Jessi can be the harshest one of all her friends, but her ire is mostly directed at her mom for the changes she’s going through within herself (which is honestly not the latter’s fault). It takes time for Jessi to come around to a lot of different perspectives, but her path towards closure is not a painless one, and probably won’t be for some time.

Her Statue Of Liberty Moment

Jessi and the class take a trip to NYC to see the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately for her, this coincides exactly with her first period, making the situation uncomfortable at best and mortifying at worst.

Jessi’s lucky in that her friends are around for some quick help, and Lady Liberty herself doles out some much-needed advice. Still, though Jessi isn’t shamed by the outcome, nor should she be, the initial moment is sure to be among her most miserable memories.

She Blows Up At Missy

Jessi throws a sleepover party and invites popular girls Devin and Lola, as well as Missy. There, the latter consumes way too much sugar, proceeding to embarrass herself just a little bit.

Devin and Lola ridicule Missy and encourage her to humiliate herself further. At this moment, Jessi favors the need to be popular over basic human decency and joins in the cruelty.

Punishing Her Mom For Her Parents’ Divorce

As a child of divorce, Jessi likes one parent more than the other; in this case, her dad. She’s angry at her mother for breaking her family apart (considering it was Shannon’s choice to divorce her husband, after all), so she jumps down her throat every chance she gets.

At the same time, Jessi decides that the best way to “punish” her mom is to show more love towards her father, who is living in their basement at that point. This kind of vengeful behavior is certainly not healthy.

Finds It Hard To Bond With Girls

Jessi obviously requires female companionship, and her friendship with Missy proves that (to an extent). But by and large, Jessi is unable to create a lasting connection with the other girls in her grade.

In fact, she often resorts to the boys for emotional support, relying on Nick, Andrew, and Jay, but mostly Matthew. These two characters spend a lot of their time together, and they are always there for each other no matter what. This is sweet, but if Jessi were able to give more girls a chance, she would have friends who could completely empathize with her problems.

Her Criminal Activities

With encouragement from Connie, Jessi turns to shoplifting to balance out all the anger rattling around in her head. She decides to steal random objects from a pharmacy but eventually gets caught.

The pharmacist is surprisingly generous, having read her family’s full history by means of their prescriptions changing, but Jessi is humiliated enough for the Shame Wizard to make his first appearance.

Refuses To Divulge Her Relationship With Jay

Jessi and Jay love making out with each other — no thanks to Connie’s invasive suggestions — but when he asks her to make their relationship official, she backs away from the whole thing.

It’s revealed that Jessi is secretly embarrassed by Jay, his family life, and his behavior, which is why she wants to keep it a secret. Not only is this unfair towards Jay but exposes Jessi for being shallow and unappreciative of his attempts to connect with her.

Can’t See That Her Ninth-Grade BF Is A Phony

Jessi’s tumultuous relationship with Michael Angelo is fraught with hormones, anxiety, and depression. She believes that she will never find anyone as interesting or cool as he is (which he is decidedly not), and therefore almost allows herself to go beyond her limits in order to please him.

Fortunately, she doesn’t go through with his proposed sex act, but Jessi is left feeling distraught as she is led to believe that not satisfying her boyfriend actually causes him physical pain.

Unable To Reconcile With Cantor Dina

It’s understandable that Jessi despises her mother’s new girlfriend, Cantor Dina, because she automatically assigns the guilt in the wrong direction (without observing that her parents’ marriage had been eroding for years.)

Her hatred of this character is so extreme, it’s borderline violent. How long can Jessi go on without some resolution on this matter so dear to her heart? The longer she stokes the embers of her wrath, the harder her journey towards self-actualization will be.

Embarrassed About Her Menstrual Cycle

At camp, Jessi is rudely awakened by more period blood than she had ever experienced before, as it completely soaks her bedsheets. Connie confirms that this is a completely natural occurrence during menstruation.

Jessi, in a bid to prove her strength, goes swimming with a pile of sanitary napkins stuffed into her bathing suit. In typical Big Mouth style, they detach and end up absorbing all the water in the lake, a metaphor for Jessi’s unbearable shame over what transpires.

Has To Move Away From Her Friends

The end of seventh grade is no doubt the saddest experience for Jessi: she’s had to leave her home, her town, all her friends, and her father.

It’s worse when she learns that none of her new friends understand her suburban perspectives, so it takes the arrival of a dashing young man named Michael Angelo to fill the void in her life. Of course, this doesn’t turn out to be a positive thing for her in the long run, either.