#Barbie interacting with her audience could have been the heart of the whole movie and I think they wanted it to be but it felt tacked on

[allieinarden]

The Barbie movie had a ton of stuff going on but most of it worked at least a little bit, the one thing that didn’t work for me at all was the girl and her mom.

[cassatine]

curse-tagged by the lovely @winterofherdiscontent for a TLJ speculation meme

post the rules answer the questions given to you by the tagger post 11 questions of your own tag some people

under cut because it got long

do you think rey’s parentage question will be answered once and for all in episode 8?

...Yes and no? I hope so, because - i don’t care about that question. I want to see it go. I mean at this point I’m Rey Random team because I just about hate the speculation and the need to tie her to a legacy character (I get it, I can even see the appeal - poetry and all that. Still hate it.) But let’s be real and cynical if I was in charge, considering reception... Incremental reveal maybe? I tend to think we’ll get something on the question, but not 100% confirmation, because it’ll leave time for most of the audience to get used to it, but also the chunk of the fanbase that will be unsatisfied by the answer will still have two more years to hope and fork over sweet money to LF.

how will snoke proceed when/if goth barbie finally (dramatically) breaks free?

Well first he’ll throw a fit, then a bigger fit, and - okay, I don’t know. Snoke is a blank. Like I don’t think he’ll do a happy dance, but also he could just not care because he’s set on a new scavenger barbie or smthg. I’m still betting on pissed because I too would be pissed to lose my one of a kind dramatic goth barbie.

will angry space hermit luke ever get off that island?

Gosh that’s a good one - I tend to think he won’t tbh. IX seems prepped to be without legacy characters. Han’s dead, Leia... well. And they’re supposed to pass the torch - the finale has to belong to the new characters. The victory at the end has to be theirs, and one way to ensure Luke doesn’t overshadow that or is turned to passive spectator in the final act is to leave him on that island. 

Alternatively, since he’s the Yoda where Han was the Obi-Wan, poetry dictates he dies.

what are the odds of a mass porg attack occurring at some point in swtlj?

Very high! They will team up with the sparklefoxes of prettiness and unleash eldritch horrors on the galaxy. In which case Luke will definitely leave the island, because it’ll be that or be eaten. 

what’s up with hux’s new hairdo?

He wanted to show Kylo what a real makeover is. 

do you think the culture(s) of varied planets/worlds will be featured more in this next instalment?

Not really. It tends to be all background, to give the impression of substance, but the real worldbuilding happens in other media. 

how do you see finn’s character arc progressing in episode 8?

He’s going to become a big deal in the Resistance! I think the tree main arcs (Rey, Kylo and Finn) have had some structural common points until now and they’re all tied to the theme of identity and becoming, and TLJ will see them all struggle with that. In Finn’s case it will be about his place in the world and more immediately the Resistance. He’s not going to wake up feeling like he belongs to it, but I think he’ll be at least well on his way there by the end of the movie. I expect Rose will play a part in that but since we haven’t gotten to see them interact at all yet (grumble grumble grumble) I have no idea how. Oh, and in my best days I hope Finn’s identity crisis won’t be solved by shooting a lot of troopers, but rather by pushing the perception shift re: troopers further both in an out of universe. I want humanity in his arc too. 

what do you think will be the tipping point for kylo reaching out and to whom do you think he is/was?

I'm 99% sure it’s Rey, factoring in reasonable doubt. I think they’re both going to have an identity struggle, like Finn, and It Will Not Go Well for either and they’ll both be lost and at their lowest when it happens. I’m pretty sure he’d offer to teach her again even if everything was fine and dandy tho. Second or third act imo. 

do you think han’s death will be centrally addressed and if so how?

Addressed, yes, centrally... not so much. We’ll feel the aftermath of it, but that death was a step in the narrative, in the new characters’ journeys, not a central element. It’s not that it doesn’t matter, it’s already had an effect on these journeys and it’ll keep on having one, but like. It’s a space fantasy adventure movie, not an eulogy. 

how do you think leia’s fate will be portrayed in swtlj?

I’ve been carefully avoiding the thought tbh. I don’t want her to die but I also don’t want her to not-die and then not be in IX. But I trust LF to take the greatest care with Carrie Fisher’s legacy, so I’m not super worried. And that’s probably an unpopular opinion, but I’m fine with tragic. Break my heart further LF, I’m ready.

will kylo ever go back to actually washing his hair?

No. At the end of TLJ, he and Rey crash on Dagobah and by the time IX picks up they’ll be covered in swamp water and they will remain so for the whole final episode. It will be absolutely filthy. 

Questions now. I copypasted some because I suck at coming up with those

What’s that “ages-old mysteries of the Force” thing about?

Who will lose a hand?

how do you see finn’s character arc progressing in episode 8?

Will we get a shirtless Kylo and in which circumstances?

Force ghosts featured Y/N

Any expectations for Finn and Rose’s dynamic? 

Rey vs Kylo, Rey vs Luke or both, which fight is more likely?

Will we learn who Snoke is and do we care?

will angry space hermit luke ever get off that island?

What is Luke even doing on that island?

Assuming Star Wars had a higher rating and could be more scary/gruesome/sexy/etc, what would you want to see happen in 8?

And I shall tag @smols-darklighter @emperorren @seankayos @suedonima @thehermitsacedia @holocroning @ashesforfoxes and whoever wants to do it! feel invited to (and tag me i’m curious)

[ohjohnno]

Outrageous Fortune Reviewcap: S1E04 (”The Cause Of This Defect”)

This isn’t quite a bottle episode - it does feature a couple of new characters, and there are a couple of moments on new sets - but in a lot of ways it does feel like one. It’s weirdly plotless, for one thing; aside from the cold open, the entire thing takes place over a period of about, at most, five hours, and as a result it’s very slow paced. That allows for a deeper exploration of more characters than usual, and the result is one of the most complex, affecting, and engaging episodes the show ever did.

The “plot”, or rather plot substitute, is a funeral and its immediate aftermath. In the cold open, we meet this guy: 

That’s Billy Grady West, and we don’t know him long. He dies a sad death by misadventure while fleeing a cop, making the mistake of hiding in a dustbin on the day the binmen come round. Over the course of the episode, we learn that he was Eric’s son, but also that he was really a West, to the point where he’d changed his name to reflect his feelings. Now, one could argue that we maybe should have been introduced to him in an earlier episode - it’s a bit weird that we’ve passed without mention of this guy so far, after all - but I don’t mind; he’s really more a plot device than a character, and that’s as it should be. The most important thing about him is that his death gives the writers an excuse to take Wolf out of prison for a day, thus setting off a chain of events that teaches us a bit more about just about every character.

It’s gonna be difficult to split this up into individual character-plot analysis like I usually do, so this is gonna be a little bit more like a traditional recap. So much of import is happening in just about every second of this episode that I’d feel worried about missing something if I didn’t. So, once we’re past the cold open and the opening credits, we jump right into the action with the Wests.

Right away, we learn several things. First, that Van - judging by the wall he punches - was very fond of Billy; secondly, that Loretta is, judging by her facial expression, a little bothered by still being what Pascalle calls “the oldest virgin in West Auckland”; and thirdly, that neither Cheryl nor Jethro are particularly looking forward to Wolf’s impending appearance at Billy’s service, even though he’ll be under guard. Eric appears, and it’s unclear whether his reticence to attend his son’s service is inability to face up to grief or just a lack of it. Then we’re at the service.

Jethro’s giving a speech over Billy’s grave, and you can tell instantly that he didn’t like him; he’s awkwardly stumbling over euphemisms about his skills and talents, treating him like an embarrassing fuckup whose funeral he is attending only out of obligation. But Wolf shows up in the middle of it, and their brief interaction is fraught with significance. 

He embraces Pascalle and Eric (as Cheryl looks on in disgust), but steps up to Jethro as if he barely knows him, standing there with an abrasive “thanks, mate” and staring him down with the full force of fatherly authority until he moves, clearly seething with long-brewed resentment that surely grows a little more potent right in that moment, as he’s forced once more to put a lid on it and bottle it up, making way for the indomitable force of his father’s self-assured machismo. Wolf, for his part, then delivers a wonderfully engaging, emotionally resonant speech (mostly about a digger Billy once commandeered) that captures the audience’s hearts, driving Jethro even more round the bend. “Only he could turn a bloody tragedy into the big day out,” he seethes to Cheryl, who isn’t any happier with the situation. Her mood isn’t improved by their lawyer, Corky, demanding money up-front for the appeal. They leave him in the dust.

Back at the house now, and Jethro’s rage has subsumed into a piercingly smug contempt. He mocks Billy to Van’s face while preparing meat on the “barbie”, and he doesn’t mince words: “A p-head screwup. If he hadn’t gone now, he would have gone next week, next year...” Van doesn’t like that at all, and that seems to give Jethro all the motivation he needs to keep pushing, seemingly itching to start a fight. Their brewing confrontation is interrupted by Cheryl, but it’s clear there’s something going on here that goes far deeper than Jethro’s dislike for Billy. Indeed, it’s pretty clear that this isn’t about Van, either, who did nothing whatsoever to provoke Jethro’s barrage of needles. This is a resentment that goes all the way to the top.

Wolf’s prison guard allows him a visit to the house, too, and Cheryl still isn’t pleased to see him. Loretta is, though, and he’s not the only one she’s pleased to see.

Wolf politely introduces her to Paul, his young, attractive prison guard. Loretta, well... look at that face. The “oldest virgin in West Auckland”, indeed, but far from an unfeeling robot. 

Cheryl burns her hand on a tray of sausage rolls, and runs to the bathroom for cold water; Wolf follows her, and they have brief, very confused, and very passionate sex. Loretta, meanwhile, does her best to hit on Paul, and it’s absolutely hilarious in the way that only awkward, antisocial nerd attempts at hitting on people can be. Her attempt is a nervous, motormouthed pile of obscure film references and weirdly sexual insults, the sort of thing that’s usually presented the other way around, gender-wise; it’s really quite rare to see the traditional gender roles get swapped like this, and it’s all the funnier for it. Poor Paul has no idea what to do, and it’s clear his torment isn’t gonna end anytime soon; Loretta asks him if he likes movies, and what’s anyone supposed to say to that?

Jethro, unable to piss in the toilet Van’s moping in, accidentally interrupts his parents; this unceremoniously ends their tryst, and things are immediately back to normal. Wolf, once more, demonstrates himself unable to understand what, exactly, it is that is making Cheryl so angry about the Allen situation; Cheryl, by now, has little to no interest in enlightening him. So she leaves, telling him to “fuck off back to prison”, leaving Wolf fuming in the bathroom. He sees Paul and Loretta going back to the latter’s room (for a “movie”), and it’s instantly apparent that he knows exactly what’s happening. Still, he lets it pass without comment, or at least without explicit comment; something tells me Paul might’ve been able to read between the lines when he said “I’m not going anywhere.”

Loretta continues to be her awkward self; “I’m gonna be a film director,” she proclaims while showing Paul her collection, and she keeps insulting him. He’s not bothered, but he thinks it’s funny, and he tells her so; “You don’t hold back, do you?” Loretta is suddenly very awkward indeed; “Do you think that’s... not attractive?”

In prior episodes, we’ve caught sight of the vindictive and manipulative sides of Loretta; here, we get an extremely important, timely reminder that she’s a fifteen year old girl, and that it’s absolutely essential to take that fact into account when evaluating her actions. She asks him, hesitantly and nervously, if he wants to have sex with her; he (rather shockingly) agrees, and that terrifies her. But after a moment’s frozen, deer-in-headlights terror, she gets up and closes the door anyway.

Down in the garden, Wolf has, once again, stolen Jethro’s thunder; he’s manning the barbie now, and asks Jethro if he wants a sausage. “No thanks,” says Jethro bitterly, skulking back into the house as Wolf tries to call in enough favors to convince Corky to represent him pro bono. It’s unclear whether it’s working, and Van overhears enough of it to get a little nervous. As Paul kisses Loretta - giving her what looks like a huge overload of very strong, conflicting emotions - Jethro and Cheryl commiserate in the kitchen, only for Jethro to seem to get a little mad at her for not being mad enough at Wolf. Ted wanders in, confused as usual, mentioning his late wife Rita as Pascalle consoles Eric, who seems unusually interested in the details of his late son’s sex life.

It’s not clear whether Pascalle “rooted” him before or after he changed his last name to West, not that I suppose that matters; it wasn’t like he was a blood relative, after all. Eric suggests that it was “one of the highlights, I think, of his whole life”, displaying a truly remarkable ability to perv on women in literally any conceivable circumstance; cut, hilariously, to to Loretta and Paul, lounging in bed, their facial expressions telling the whole story.

Paul, to his credit, seems upset that Loretta didn’t enjoy it, and immediately tries to make amends by, as the Jamaicans say, going bowcat. Meanwhile, Wolf and Van have a heart-to-heart in the garden; Van, it transpires, blames himself for what happened to Billy, mentioning that he didn’t join him on his criminal scheme this time because he knew Cheryl wouldn’t approve. Wolf isn’t having that. “You are a good man, with a lot on his plate,” he insists, and then something equal parts fascinating and horrible escapes his mouth: “Trying to listen to your mother and do the right thing by the family!”

It’s one short sentence that says volumes about his mentality. On the one hand, he truly does deeply, profoundly love and care about Van, and is genuinely speaking from deep within his heart as he does his best to try and comfort him. But it reveals a lot about what, exactly, is in that heart. He does, it seems, believe that a son should pay attention to the words of his mother, but the way he phrases it suggests that he really only believes this out of a sense of traditional moral obligation; he doesn’t really believe, or even countenance for a second, the notion that Cheryl could maybe have a point, the idea that her opinion is of equal value to his. Instead, he frames her decisions as a tragedy, the rock opposite the hard place that is “do[ing] the right thing by the family”, an obstacle that Van will have to overcome if he is to live up to the duties Wolf wants of him with the family. It’s advice delivered with pure intention from a deeply impure heart, and it may, alas, be just about the worst advice Van could get right now.

Elsewhere, Pascalle and Eric have been joined by Draska Doslic, a girl from a nearby Croatian family who initially appeared in episode two, but who was inconsequential enough there that I forgot to mention her. She’s Pascalle’s on-again, off-again friend, and it turns out both she and another mutual friend also, in fact, “rooted” the late Billy, much to Eric’s shock. They admit it was a “pity root”, motivated by Billy’s sad life and broken home; Eric immediately starts droning on about his sadness and guilt, about as transparent as a man can humanly get. It’s hilarious, but it’s also kinda sad in itself, y’know? Billy was raised - in theory, anyway - by a perverted, drunken criminal in an environment almost entirely filled with drunks and criminals; of course he was gonna turn out a fuckup. That cycle isn’t gonna be broken anytime soon, not if these surroundings are anything to go by.

Draska immediately perks up when Van walks in; Van barely notices, fresh off his conversation with Wolf, and accordingly starts a fight with Cheryl, drunkenly accusing her of betraying him while throwing some highly smashable stuff around. See what I meant about bad advice? Wolf has yet to learn that Van takes everything in the most simplistic, literal possible terms, and doesn’t have any sort of capacity for subtlety. If you tell him that what Cheryl’s doing is the opposite of “the right thing by the family”, how d’you expect him to react? The boy just about worships his father; the fact that he’s making him choose between him and Cheryl is cruel for both of them. 

Loretta, as it turned out, did not like Paul going bowcat, and is particularly grossed out when she learns of the blood that accompanied the loss of her virginity. The whole thing seems to have made her very uncomfortable, and Paul isn’t really reading the signs very well. He’s clearly enjoying himself a lot more than she is, so he has much more motivation to keep going than she does. She’s so not enjoying it, in fact, that she’s genuinely astonished to learn that he’s willing to go again. Still, she doesn’t kick him out.

Elsewhere, Cheryl’s friend Rochelle shows up. She’ll be pretty important eventually, although that’ll take a while. She showers enthusiastic affection upon both Wolf and Eric, the latter of whom is particularly pleased. Pascalle comes out, and Wolf gives her genuine and heartfelt encouragement to pursue her modelling career; it’s a lovely thing to do, especially given Cheryl’s constant haranguing of her for it, no matter how understandable. Wolf is in such a good mood, in fact, that he starts dancing with Cheryl, who can’t keep a big grin off her face. That’s Wolf’s thing, see: he’s very charismatic indeed, and his love for his family is so genuine as to be difficult to deny. One can almost see the twenty years of beautiful memories replaying in Cheryl’s head as they dance, erasing these horrible last few months and taking her back to paradise. It’s a rare portrait of the deep love that once existed between them that we mostly missed out on in this show. It’s heartwarming and heartbreaking at once, a snapshot of a rosier past and an alternate present where everything is much happier. But, alas, it’s - how did Lorde say it? - just a supercut.

Loretta and Paul are just talking now. For a moment, it seems that Loretta has regained her confidence; she messes with him, briefly making up and retracting a story about parental abuse just to see the look on his face, and complains about how much she disliked Billy even when he was a small child. But Paul sees through it, and gently pokes her; “so you do have feelings”, he says, and her reaction is really quite fascinating. Immediately, her confidence goes away; she bundles herself up, wrapping her legs up in her arms, frowns and tremulously denies it. “Nah,” she says, “not many, if any.” 

That is an important moment; it may, in character terms, be the most important moment in the episode. Loretta is a child who doesn’t fit in; she’s not like her sexy, popular sister, or her jocky, popular brother, and she feels alienated from just about everyone else in her age group. And she is, we know, a person with great capacity for doing terrible things, whose reputation on that front precedes her. And she takes refuge in that latter trait, throwing it up as her shield against a world that rejects and cruelly mocks her, throwing that cruelty back in its face in the form of searing witticisms and cruel schemes. But it’s not that she can’t feel; if anything, her feelings are very strong indeed, and at her core is a tender, fragile girl whose soul is all fractured from the neverending ache of loneliness. Maybe her actions in episode two really were jealousy; maybe that kinda abusive, controlling friendship she has with Kurt really is all she has, thus motivating her to do anything to protect the totality of her hold over him. Without him, she’d be alone with the feelings she wishes she didn’t have, having to confront her own normality.

Van, down in the garden, is not enjoying the sight of his parents dancing nearly as much as everyone else. “Your parents are so cool,” says Draska, but Van’s mind is clearly on the fragility of it all, and so off he goes, grabbing his balaclava.

He encounters Jethro on the way out, doing a very bad job of lying to him about what he’s gonna do. Jethro follows him, encountering and mostly ignoring Allen (from the last episode) on the way out. Allen walks with great purpose through the house, finds Eric, and punches him, thinking he was the one who snitched on him last episode. Wolf gently takes him aside and calmly explains to him that he was the one who snitched on him, and what follows is a fascinating demonstration of the dynamics of macho honor.

They don’t fight, that’s for sure; they converse like equals who respect one another, even though the topic of their conversation is Allen’s admitted attempts to pull Wolf’s wife. “Jesus Christ, Allen, you didn’t give me a choice!” says Wolf, and it’s fascinating that he doesn’t once suggest to Allen that maybe he might have been in the wrong to try and sleep with a married woman. Rather, he seems to view this as natural and expected, and frames his own actions as a necessary evil to protect the one he loves. He doesn’t give Cheryl any agency in this, either; she’s just the object being fought over, and Wolf seems to believe that Allen “spending every day with [her], giving her money” would have been enough to break her loyalty. But he doesn’t even think of breaking off his friendship with Allen; instead, he apologizes for what he had to do and promises to make it up to him. This episode is the last we ever see of Allen - I presume he went to prison shortly after this - but I’ve no doubt Wolf would have kept his promise if able. It’s a fascinating thing, that macho honor system, and a resilient one - but it’s not a good one. 

We get a timeskip; it’s nighttime now, and Van is trying to rob a closed gas station in order to get money for Wolf’s appeal. Jethro has followed him, and gently reminds him that lawyers generally charge a little more than gas stations tend to keep within their premises. Van goes off to rob somewhere else, leaving Jethro sighing. Meanwhile, Eric is making the most of the sympathy he’s getting from Rochelle while Wolf and Cheryl talk. 

Wolf lays out an ultimatum. If Cheryl still loves him, he’ll go back to prison and faithfully serve the remainder of his time, for the sake of the children; if she doesn’t, he’ll make his escape right now. Cheryl says “when you’re here, it’s like you never left”; Wolf smiles and takes that as an expression of love, but Cheryl’s face afterwards indicates that it was far more complicated a statement than that. 

Maybe Cheryl does love him, but she’s also very much aware of what impact Wolf escaping would have on her kids and their lives. With that to look up to, what would become of her experiment? What would happen to her kids’ lives? And on the other hand, does she really want things to go back to how they were before Wolf left? Sure, it feels good, but where does it all lead?

Pascalle and Draska share a confession. “I didn’t really wanna root Billy”, says Draska; “Me neither,” affirms Pascalle. Draska did it to make Van jealous, and while we never find out why Pascalle did it, one presumes she had her reasons. Considered in context with Loretta’s escapades this episode, and this episode presents a fascinating critique of the way society pressures women into having sex for all sorts of reasons except them actually wanting to have sex, thus ultimately satisfying only the men at their expense. Pascalle and Draska finish up by, as The Onion once said, validating the living shit out of each other while Wolf shoos Cheryl away so he can talk about “plans” with Allen. Cheryl steps away and looks over the party, clearly having something of a moment of clarity as a psychedelic guitar solo plays from the stereo in the background. Wolf loves her enough to tell her that he does; he doesn’t love her enough to trust her with any real knowledge about the things he does. 

Elsewhere, Van is breaking into a drugstore, on the same idea as before. Jethro follows him, again pointing out that this makes little sense. They’re interrupted by a kid who seems to be sleeping there, who chases them out with threats to call the cops.

                                            White trash bastards!

Van twists some stuff round to blame Jethro for Wolf’s predicament, still following the lines Wolf himself laid out for him in their conversation earlier: that this is all because of Cheryl and her crackpot scheme to go straight, and that Jethro is aiding and abetting her by being a “mummy’s boy”. Jethro objects a little too strenuously to this characterization, and essentially flips it back on him, accusing him of wanting to be Wolf. He’s probably more right; Cheryl doesn’t realise how different Jethro is from her, but neither Van nor Wolf realise Van isn’t cut out to be Wolf 2.0. Only Jethro realises that. He cautions Van against following this path, lest he end up a “dead loser like Billy”; they fight (kinda) and Jethro, being the less drunk of the two, wins. Jethro leaves; Van turns round and sees a digger.

Jethro returns home, and he and Wolf have their first real conversation of the entire show. It might be the most hostile interaction between any two characters so far, too, and that includes that one scene in episode two where a woman was beating her nephew. There’s mutually flowing resentment here, both tied to things bigger than the men themselves. Wolf has some sort of class resentment tied up in the way his son has decided to live his life; “Mister I work in town, I wear a suit”, he mocks, bemoaning all the potential wasted when they decided to send him to the “uni-var-sity” instead of drawing him into the family business. Jethro isn’t as explicit about the reasons for his resentment, but he doesn’t need to be; it’s clear as day, and has been from the moment Wolf stepped up to him at the service. Jethro has a complex about his father, feeling at once intimidated and abandoned by him, clearly craving the love and affection he shows the other kids while idolizing his macho self-assuredness and self-control, and channeling his resentment at his lack of that into a general hatred of Wolf, the things Wolf does, and people who remind him of Wolf. He certainly didn’t have Van’s best interests in mind when he told him to be his own man and stop imitating his father; no, he was just bitter, aiming squarely where it would hurt, fighting a substitute for Wolf because he knew that was the closest he could get to beating him. “Oh, thank god Mum doesn’t buy your shit,” he snarls, but it’s clear from his actions in the previous episode that Cheryl is just an ally of convenience to him, herself not realising that she and Jethro are united only in their shared distaste for Wolf and not in any of the reasons.

Loretta and Paul are at it again; Loretta seems to be enjoying it, but quickly reveals (much to Paul’s chagrin) that it was just an act. She’s gotten bored enough now that she’s back to her usual ways, getting most of her pleasure from messing with him; when she finally tells him she’s fifteen, his shock gives her the first real smile of the night. Not that this excuses him, natch - he really should have known, and I think on some level probably did, but that didn’t stop him. He’s entirely in the wrong here, both legally and otherwise - but there’s no denying the joy she takes in making him panic. Which is the story of her life, really, so far as we’re able to tell from these four episodes - she doesn’t have a lot of joy in her life, but she takes what she can get in making other people suffer.

Wolf and Cheryl have their final conversation of the night. They share jokes and laugh at their friends, like any happily married couple. But their differences are still there, and irreconcilable. “There are no prizes for suffering, love,” says Wolf. “Nobody thanks you for it.” It’s a great, great quote, applicable to many situations and, in itself, entirely correct - but hot on its heels comes a quote arguably even more important: “I’m not gonna change, love.”

Cheryl knows he’s right, of course. But Wolf has to go before the conversation can finish. He says his goodbyes, and after he’s gone Loretta allows herself a moment of gloating to Pascalle; “You’re still a slut, but I’m no longer a virgin,” she says, before proclaiming that she’s never gonna do it again. And who can blame her? As far as I can tell, that was awful. Bad sex isn’t depicted too often on television, or if it is it’s usually the butt of very immature comedies. Here, it’s treated maturely and seriously, as an important character moment and a rare possibly-realistic depiction of the embarrassing awkwardness of teenage girldom. Hats off to the writers for this one.

Paul lets the ever-well-behaved Wolf sit in the front seat of the prison van on the way back, secure in his knowledge that he’s not gonna try and escape. Or at least that’s what he thinks before a giant digger, piloted by an ecstatically drunk Van, blocks the road ahead. Van gets out, caterwauling about an escape attempt; Paul reaches for his radio to call for backup, but Wolf assures him that he’ll handle it.

He tells Van much the same thing he’s been telling him already: “Go home and look after your mother for me, okay?” For once, it might be good advice. He gets back in the prison van; it drives off, leaving Van confused and dejected in the middle of the road. 

Our final scene is Cheryl mostly-monologuing to Jethro, vocalising most of the things we’ve been able to figure she was thinking towards the end of the episode: she truly does love Wolf, and probably always will, but needs him to stay in prison if they’re to continue making a good life for themselves. “It’s like when you turn the lights on in a room full of mess,” she says; “you’ve seen it, and it’s too late.” It hurts her, but it’s good to see her making the right decision. She’s not gonna go forward with the appeal; despite everything, she’s gonna let him rot in prison. Jethro, naturally, seems perfectly happy with this decision. Alas, for all her clarity on Wolf, Cheryl is still blinkered on him; she doesn’t realise just what he is, or the reasons he feels what he feels. But for now, he’s being a good mummy’s boy, listening to her talk about feelings and getting her drinks. And so the family’s life goes on, same as before; the difference is, as Cheryl said, that the lights have been turned on now and we’ve seen a whole lot about many of these characters that can’t be unseen. There’s a depth and complexity of character here that’s rare to find in any fiction, and I cherish it very much. This is an episode without a wasted moment, where every scene is just as important as the last. It’s as good as TV writing gets, if you ask me, and it’s one of my favorite episodes of anything ever. But it’s still early days yet, and the show will cover a lot of ground, both good and bad, beyond this. To the next!