Anastasia Holmes

**Anastasia Rae Holmes** is a major character in *All the Wrong Kids*. She is portrayed by Robyn Brinkworth.

In her final year of middle school, Anastasia made several unsuccessful attempts to position herself as one of the most popular girls of Marshall Maddox High School, following the fallout of her friendship with Heather Alloy. As part of this attempt, she formed a calculated friendship with Nathaniel Ross, Liesel Hofmeister and Candace Summerfield after receiving detention with them during the first week of school. However, that forced friendship would cement itself as genuine throughout the year and feature the additions of Finn and Percy Chamberlain to the group.

Anastasia's attempts to gain popularity began with a failed bid to become Student Council President with Candace as her Vice President. She later makes a bid to captain the girls' swimming team; though she does lose the captaincy to Brynn Maple, she is able to nab the position of vice captain. Later that year, Anastasia auditions for the lead role of Juliet in the eighth grade play, then titled *One Field Apart*. Although losing out on the role to Heather, numerous script revisions and a recasting result in her receiving the lead role of Rhiannon alongside Heather's Juliet in the revised version of the play, now called *East High Story*. In spite of these attempts at popularity, however, the Marshall Maddox Middle School yearbook superlative for Most Popular ultimately ends up going to Liesel instead.

In high school, Anastasia forms an almost immediate rivalry with Grace Duncan after being rejected for the Marshall Maddox High School girls' swimming team. Anastasia instead joins the school's cheerleading squad under the mentorship of Daisy Swan.

Anastasia was involved in many romantic entanglements throughout her high school years. She was initially involved with Oliver Parrish, a relationship that suffered and eventually broke down due to mutual jealousy. She later began a relationship with Stuart McKinney, but broke up with him due to a lack of effort on his part. Her next relationship was with Dale, a short-lived relationship that she ended after he tried to pressure her into sex. Anastasia then began dating Jeff English, whom she met via their mutual friendship with Finn. The two remained together for the rest of Anastasia's high school career.

In senior year, Anastasia applied to a number of state schools throughout Massachusetts. After being accepted to the University of Massachusetts campuses in Boston, Lowell and Worchester, she eventually decides to go to the University of Massachusetts, Boston to study economics.

## History

Anastasia is the only child of Kevin Holmes and his ex-wife, Dr. Holmes. They divorce when Anastasia is 10 years old. Following her parents' divorce, Kevin adopts a coddling parenting style, pampering Anastasia with whatever she wants, whenever she wants it. Because of this, Anastasia feels possessive over her father's attention, which causes conflict when Kevin starts dating Serena.

In her sixth and seventh grade years at Marshall Maddox Middle School, Anastasia is close friends with Heather Alloy and Mia Maddox. However, her relationship with Heather in particular is incredibly fraught even when they are friends due to their similarly controlling and ambitious personalities ("Heather and the Other Girls").

## *All the Wrong Kids*

### Eighth grade at Marshall Maddox High School

Anastasia is introduced in "Enemies of My Enemy". She meets up with her friends Heather and Mia the morning of their first day of eighth grade at Marshall Maddox Middle School. Before she has the opportunity to catch up with them, Heather accuses Anastasia of abandoning her and Mia over the summer by going to Europe with her father over summer vacation. Heather declares her and Mia's friendship with Anastasia is over, and promises to make Anastasia's last year in middle school a living hell.

At the beginning of history class, Anastasia is talking to Karen Swan and Courtney Reynolds while waiting for Mrs. Stewart to arrive. Unbeknownst to her, Nathaniel Ross uses this opportunity to slip glue into her backpack. Mrs. Stewart then arrives and begins to blame Nathaniel for gluing her to her seat. When Nathaniel continues to deny it, she begins searching for evidence, finding the glue in Anastasia's backpack. Mrs. Stewart eventually decides to give both Nathaniel and Anastasia detention as she cannot determine who was the one who pulled the prank, extending this punishment to Courtney and Liesel Hofmeister when they try to stand up to her.

Once in detention, Anastasia and Candace Summerfield realize that Nathaniel has framed both of them for something he has done and initially start out angry at him. Eventually, Anastasia mourns the loss of her friendships with Heather and Mia and begins to complain about Heather, with Candace, Nathaniel and Percy and Finn Chamberlain joining in. When Candace suggests forming an alliance to get back at Heather, Anastasia readily agrees to join it. The next day, when Nathaniel tells Anastasia and Candace that he believes the only way to take down Heather would require a year-long process of consistently ruining her ambitions, Anastasia is more than willing to take on the major role of taking her down, and has a small dream sequence of her as the most popular girl in school, walking up to Heather and ripping a crown off of her head before calling herself "the Queen of Marshall Maddox Middle School" and donning the crown herself. When Liesel, Percy and Finn join the group later, Anastasia is more than excited to have them join the team and commits herself to being "the best team leader this world has ever seen".

In "Council", Anastasia and Nathaniel walk into school together when they see Ms. Gardner putting up a sign-up sheet for Student Council President. Nathaniel encourages Anastasia to run for the office, but just before she puts her name down, Candace arrives and sees the sheet, telling Anastasia and Nathaniel that she plans to run as well. Nathaniel says that if Anastasia and Candace both run for the seat, they run the risk of splitting the vote between the two of them and giving Heather the upper hand, suggesting that they offer a vote among their group to determine who should run for the position. Nathaniel introduces this proposition to the rest of the group just before homeroom starts. Once everyone agrees to this, Anastasia confidently walks to her homeroom class.

At lunch, Nathaniel tallies the group's votes and announces that Anastasia unanimously won their nomination. Anastasia is pleased and is about to walk off to sign up when Candace proclaims that the rest of the group, particularly Finn, have betrayed her, as she has told them all beforehand how much she wants to be the Student Council President. Anastasia tells her to get over it, but this only encourages Candace to sign up for Student Council President just to spite Anastasia.

The next day, Anastasia, Percy, Finn and Liesel are putting up Anastasia's campaign posters together when Candace walks past. They both try to greet her, but Candace ignores them. Anastasia is frustrated, but is comforted by Liesel, who assures her that Candace will get over the hurt eventually and rejoin the group before they continue to hang more posters. Later that day, Anastasia and Liesel are handing out campaign cupcakes when Anastasia notices Candace sitting with Chenille and Sheila Doberman and remarks to Liesel that such a move is a "loser's action", since the Doberman twins are not popular.

Anastasia is seen selling cupcakes before school and during lunch on Wednesday, and before school on Thursday. She tries to do the same during lunch that day, but notices that the cupcakes are beginning to lose popularity. Although she is pleased that the cupcakes have allowed her to skyrocket to second place in the polls, Anastasia wonders about what step she should take next in order to keep up her growth and overtake the forerunner Ian Freeman when she realizes that Liesel, Percy and Finn, who should have been helping her campaign, have completely abandoned her. Anastasia looks around the cafeteria, becoming increasingly frustrated as she realizes that she has no idea where her campaign assistants have gone. Frustrated, Anastasia leaves the cafeteria, crossing paths with Candace once more, who is headed to the library. The two quickly reconnect as they discuss their campaign difficulties, and are equally shocked and angry when, upon arriving at the library, they discover that Percy, Finn, Liesel and Nathaniel have been helping Ian's campaign the entire time.

In "Freeman for the People",

## Personality

Anastasia's defining quality from the earliest seasons of the show is her ambition. Always striving for the best, Anastasia's motto of "you either go big or you don't go at all" is a testament to her cutthroat attitude.

## Trivia

* She is the only character to appear in every episode of the first season of *All the Wrong Kids*.
* According to a Pottermore quiz that Robyn Brinkworth took as the character, Anastasia's Hogwarts house would be Gryffindor.