Penny and Aggie/Recap/Omega Sisters

"Didjever look in the mirror one morning and realize you're nobody?"

This storyline, with guest art by Randy Milholland of Something*Positive, introduces Helen Tomalin. Once a good friend of Penny and Sara when they were children, Helen now finds herself at the bottom of the school social hierarchy and hating it. Her only friends are the dour fundamentalist Charlotte Sims and the uncouth, unattractive Tharqa Sunflower. Helen's luck appears to change when a handsome boy, Robespierre, asks her to lunch. What she doesn't know at the time is that his friend, the sleazy operator Dirk, pressured him into asking out the next girl he saw, as a rebound relationship after a breakup.

Helen spends the next two days blissfully hanging out with Robespierre and Dirk, while pointedly ignoring Charlotte and Tharqa. However, eavesdropping on his instant messaging with Dirk, she discovers that Robespierre is completely uninterested in her, protesting that he doesn't feel right using an "immature" girl like that. Helen confronts him with "Maybe I want to be used! You ever think about that?" and walks off crying. She apologizes to Charlotte and Tharqa for ignoring them, and they welcome her back as a friend without reservations...at least, without reservations expressed to her face.

Tropes

 * Driven by Envy/The Resenter: Helen, with regard to her former friends, the Pennies.
 * Extreme Doormat: Helen. Subverted in that she wants people to use her.
 * Fat Slob: Tharqa.
 * The Fundamentalist: Charlotte.
 * I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Subverted.
 * Jerkass: Dirk. Unlike Robespierre, he's completely unconcerned with the ethics of using one girl to get over another. All he thinks of Helen is, "She's gonna be. So. Easy."
 * Lower Deck Episode
 * Popularity Food Chain: The arc title refers to Helen, Charlotte and Tharqa's position at the bottom of the chain, in contrast to the alpha girl Penny and her Girl Posse, or to The Snark Knight Aggie, who opts out of the hierarchy altogether (yet "throws [Helen] pitying looks").
 * Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Despite Dirk's patter and posturing ("Don't test the Dirk. I'm street. I'ma cut you")...let's just say that according to T Campbell, "Duane is more 'street' than Dirk."