Desperately Seeking Cuán's Hat

Season 20, Episode 68

First aired 19 April 2016

We open in Mack and Mo’s sitting room, which has become perma-lodger Katy’s new bedroom. Normally mild-mannered Mo has had it up to here with Katy, so she’s doing some unnecessary morning blender-ing. Mack charges in and tells her to knock it off or else she’ll wake Katy, but of course waking Katy is the point, so Mo revs the blender some more and complains that Katy’s been there for five days, and should be awake at 10 o’clock. Katy, of course, sleeps through all this, because all her recent tiresome nonsense with Jason has been positively exhausting. One wonders why Katy’s there in the first place until Mack points out that letting Katy use their place as her own personal doss house is earning him tons of brownie points with Dee. Mo gives approximately zero shits about this, so Mack volunteers that he’ll talk to Katy, but not today. He then adds, “Or I could stay home and not bother with the deeds if you like,” which has nothing to do with anything and makes me wonder if Mack knows what the word “or” means.

In the café, Bobbi-Lee brightly says hello to a passing David, but he gives her an icy cold shoulder. Berni and Evan are looking at brochures for lodgings at university or clown school or wherever Evan is apparently going sometime soon. He leaves, and Berni muses that she worries about him, and Bobbi-Lee says she felt the same way about Lee. Berni helpfully purses her lips and bugs out her eyes in “Fool, I don’t think so” fashion, which leads to an argument between the two of them about Bobbi-Lee’s parenting skills. It seems Bobbi-Lee would give herself about a 7 as a mother, which Berni would agree with, if the scale were from 1 to 100. Bobbi-Lee, of course, is already sensitive about this subject since Andy was calling her a bad mother through the haze of his African Hydraulic Fever just last episode.

“They’re just kids. They’ll be friends again tomorrow,” Mack is saying to Micheál in the street, and I would’ve bet $100 he was talking about Jason and Katy, but no, he’s actually talking about Réailtín and Áine, whom you may recall had a rumble in the jungle last week at school. Micheál announces what a brat Áine is and how the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, just as Tadhg and Frances wander into earshot, and she defiantly juts her chin halfway to Cork. Mack suddenly remembers he left his house on fire and flees, and Frances accuses Micheál of setting all this up so Annette would remove Áine as captain of the football team and put Réailtín in her place, and Micheál points out that Réailtín is the greatest player since Giuseppe Football, who invented the sport back in 1606. Eventually there is détente, and Frances warns Micheál that Annette is taking advantage of him. It’s a good thing I don’t have children, because I so don’t have the time or patience for this.

Back at the Katy Arms, she’s poking at a bowl of cereal and taking up space when Mo, whom you can tell is about five seconds from picking her up by her hair and slinging her out in the street, brings her the phone and says it’s John Joe. She refuses to talk to him, and whines that it should be Jason who’s calling, so Mo hangs up. Mo tries to have a calm, adult conversation with her, but Katy is being a big whiny baby. Somebody should give her a dummy.

At the café, Mack and Eoin are discussing the deeds to Mo’s Collapsi-Shack, and there’s a misunderstanding, and we will come back to it later.

Bobbi-Lee is sitting on a swing, which is the universal soap opera sign for Sad Contemplation, and looking at a picture of Lee on her phone. Also, the swing seems to be held up with ropes. Is that a thing now? In my day, they were held up with rusty chains in which you could pinch your fingers and get your hair caught, and that’s how we liked it.

Back in the occupied territories, Katy has changed into a slouchy sweatsuit and put her hair up in a greasy ponytail, and she’s eating Nutella or something straight out of the jar, all of which are soap opera shorthand for Depressed Single Woman. John Joe appears, which causes her to start yelling at him, but then he produces lasagna, chips, and Katy’s favorite candy from childhood, and her mood thaws a bit. This episode has a lot of very short scenes that aren’t adding up to a lot of forward movement.

Bobbi-Lee is still sitting on the swing, which is conveniently located directly outside Jason’s door, so when he emerges with Cuán, she pops up and runs over. She asks if she can spend some quality grandmother time with Cuán, and then takes Jason’s response as yet another volley in the War Of What A Bad Mother Bobbi-Lee Was, so there is squabbling, and there’s a funny moment in which Bobbi-Lee asks why everyone always thinks she’s after something, and Jason tells her it’s because she usually is. You can tell she’s feeling vulnerable because she doesn’t go berserk at this, and also because she’s not wearing any animal prints. Eventually he agrees to let her take Cuán for a walk, and hopefully she’ll take him for a haircut while she’s at it.

At the café, Mack is asking Evan for his help in finding a long-lost uncle who may or may not be in America, and may or may not be dead, and may or may not be Shane MacGowan. That last one is my personal theory. Mack says he may have died in 2010, so Evan says he’ll look for death notices in The Irish Voice, and Mack exclaims that this brilliant idea never would’ve occurred to him in a million years. This makes me suspect the alleged searching Mack has done so far consisted of him standing in the street and yelling the uncle’s name, or at least what he thinks the uncle’s name might have been, and then going to the shop and looking for him on the parsnips-and-magazines aisle.

In the occupied territories, John Joe is breaking his teeth on Katy’s candy, which she appreciates, and apologizing for the situation with Jason, which she does not. He offers to go talk to him, but she yells that he’s done enough damage already. Oh, I’m sure he could do some more. Mo comes in and snaps that she could hear their yelling from outside, so John Joe leaves in defeat, and she’s annoyed that he’s not taking his little brat with him. At this point Mo has officially Had It, so she launches into Katy and, basically, tells her what a pain in the ass she’s always been. Given all those lies she made up about poor Cóilín—which I know nothing about, but it doesn’t sound good—the only reason Katy can still even show her face in Ros na Rún is that John Joe begged people to forgive her. Katy is snotty, and Mo is furious, and the back and forth is like the juiciest Wimbledon match ever.

Pádraig enters the shop and finds Bobbi-Lee holding Cuán, who has a dummy by the way, so SUCK IT, KATY. She says he’s been wearing her out, and complains that he keeps taking his hat off and throwing it out of his stroller. They’re having a nice conversation until Berni pops in, and then the deep freeze settles in. She oohs and ahhs over Cuán and how long it’s been since she’s seen him, and Bobbi-Lee snots that she figured Berni was probably over at Jason’s telling him how to raise his child every day. Snerk. There is passive-aggression, and finally Bobbi-Lee has Cuán say goodbye to Pádraig, and they breeze past Berni. Berni looks sad, as does Pádraig, because as we’ve already established, the Gay Empathy Gene is strong in him.

Eoin stops Mo in the street and tells her he’s put his foot in his mouth with Mack, because he spilled the beans about the Collapsi-Shack’s foundation, or lack thereof. She is annoyed because she wanted to tell Mack herself, and tries to call him, but he doesn’t answer. Eoin tells her he’s got more news about the house, and she wonders how much it’s going to cost her. Run from the money pit, Mo! Run!

Evan finds Mack in the pub and reveals the results of his extensive detective work, i.e., Googling the uncle’s name: he’s alive and well! And Mack is devastated!

After the break, which includes an online advert for what appears to be an aerosol Nicorette deodorant, Mo is at Gaudi telling Jason how pitiful poor dear Katy is, and how it would be ever so lovely if he’d take her back. Translation: get this ho out my grill. Jason is having none of it, because Katy is a lying liar who lies, just like Lee. Mo tells him to snap out of it and grow up, and on her way out the door, she passes Bobbi-Lee, who’s returning from Granny’s Day Out. Jason looks in the stroller and within 0.03 seconds starts yelling because Cuán’s not wearing his hat, and he goes ape over how Bobbi-Lee is trying to murder his child. It is ridiculous, and Bobbi-Lee tries to calm him down, but he’s determined to make a complete effing jackass out of himself, and does so with aplomb. He shouts that he knew he couldn’t depend on her and storms off, and she starts crying, and then we see that David has been watching this whole thing.

Back at the pub, Mack explains to Evan that it turns out the Collapsi-Shack he gave Mo may actually, erm, belong to the long-lost uncle in America. Evan says Mo needs to know this, especially since she’s spending money on the place, but Mack thinks there’s no way Mystery Uncle Patsy will ever come back given he’s been in America since 1916. I don’t know, that falling-down crap-shack with no foundation is going to be awfully tempting for him.

Jason is at his place, yelling up to Cuán that dinner will be ready soon. Presumably Cuán is upstairs in an iron lung on life support after his shameful, life-threatening mistreatment at the hands of Bobbi-Lee. Jason goes to the kitchen, where he finds Katy’s flowery blouse, or headband, or knickers, or something, and picks it up and sniffs it wistfully. Don’t forget, Jason, it smells like lies and secret fertility treatments!

At Gaudi, poor Bobbi-Lee is frantically defending herself, telling David that Cuán kept pulling his hat off, and she kept putting it back on him, and oh my God, he lost his hat, he didn’t fall in a cotton gin. David reassures her that Cuán is fine, and it’s not a big deal, but she’s having a full-scale pity party, and there’s no slowing her down.

Katy has stopped by Jason’s, and she says she assumes he rang to ask her to pick up her stuff. He says he overreacted, and semi-apologizes, and as you’ll recall this is what she wanted, but she decides to argue. There is back and forthing, and one’s attention drifts, but eventually she tells him that just because Lee was a big fat liar doesn’t mean she’s one, too. He says he’s trying to learn to trust again, but he’s still working through his Lee-induced PTSD.

Back at the restaurant, David is still trying to talk Bobbi-Lee off the ledge, but sadly she’s not on an actual ledge, although it would be awesome if she were. I’m imagining Berni standing on the pavement yelling, “Jump! Jump!” up at her. David tells her she needs to focus on the future, and that she can start by apologizing to him for the way she treated him the other day. He’s demonstrating more of a spine than we’ve ever seen in him before, and Bobbi-Lee seems to like it, but also be scared of it. Wait till she sees his karate.

Mo and Katy run into each other at the café, and Katy tells her that she and Jason have patched things up, but that she’s still got one more issue to work out: John Joe. Mo is like, “That’s great! I’ll leave your crap in the skip behind the pub. By which I mean, I already threw your crap in the skip behind the pub.” Katy sits down and offers John Joe dessert as a peace offering, and he apologizes again, and she agrees to forget about it.

Mack is outside hiding from Mo, who of course immediately finds him. She tells him Eoin has just gotten a job in Dubai (NOOOOO!!!) and will be gone for several months (AIEEE!). This means he’ll have to hurry up and finish her house before he leaves in a few weeks, so she’ll need the deeds ASAP. That won’t be a problem, right?? She leaves, and Evan storms off in a huff, and this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Mack.

Next time: Andy sends Bobbi-Lee an old photo of the two of them with baby Lee, and she fumes that he’s a bastard! Ooh, I hope Bobbi-Lee starts taking karate lessons from David so the season finale can end with her karate-chopping Andy in the windpipe!