Run, Pádraig, Run!

Season 21, Episode 44

First aired 2 February 2017

Team Ros na Rún clearly went on a field trip to the countryside today, because several of the characters find themselves in a remote land of windmills and livestock this episode. The first is Bobbi-Lee, whose extensive training as a cowgirl does not seem to have prepared her for this, as she is limping along a dirt road in the middle of nowhere looking pitiful. She tries to flag down a passing car, which ignores her and zooms past, so she waves her arms and curses at it angrily as it speeds away. The harsh Siberian or possibly Martian tundra may have broken her high heel, but it’s good to know it hasn’t broken her spirit.

Shady builder Kit and his sketchy crew of workers are just finishing up ripping out the old kitchen at the café, and he tells Berni they’re heading off to pick up the new equipment and will be back with it soon. She’s thrilled that she’ll never have to see the old kitchen again, which is not entirely correct, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Máire pops in to faint at the noise and pray to God to save them all from the nightmare of a kitchen renovation, which she is pretty sure is one of the signs of the Apocalypse. She’s getting the Bible confused with the IKEA catalog again. She doesn’t think there was anything wrong with the old kitchen, of course, and worries that Berni is biting off more than she can chew financially, but Berni assures her there’s nothing to worry about by using the word “iontach!” about 11 times in this scene.

And speaking of people who find everything “iontach!”, over at the shop Gráinne gives David the good news that they can stay at Micheál’s empty sex house again tonight. David is thrilled, and takes this opportunity to complain some more about how irritating Pádraig is. Well, you should’ve thought of that before you married him, David. Just then offensive Pádraig himself arrives, and David decides that he may be a complete nuisance, but he is still useful, and goes over to strong-arm him into helping him with the poitín later. I’m pretty sure there’s a commandment about “Thou shalt not bitch about thy homosexual friend behind his back all day and then asketh him to do you a favor” that Father Charitable is forgetting here.

Bobbi-Lee is at home arguing with her manager or someone about the misprinted CD covers by phone while soaking her feet, which are engulfed in flames from her long walk. Berni pops in to be snotty for a bit and then notices Bobbi-Lee is holding a giant stack of cash, which it seems is what she got for selling her car. I should clarify that Bobbi-Lee got this money for selling her own car, not Berni’s, although that would have been truly iontach. It seems the jerk who was supposed to give her €1500 for it only gave her €1000, and then made her walk home, which was especially cruel given that he apparently lives in Holland. Berni helps herself to the €1000 and says she’ll apply it to the thousands Bobbi-Lee owes her, and it’s a good thing Berni is already wearing a giant scarf that looks like a neck brace, because if she keeps this up I predict she will have a series of broken vertebrae before long.

Back at the shop, which seems to now have a café table I don’t recall ever seeing before, David is still trying to convince Pádraig to help him with Operation: Faraway Poitín. Mo shows up and asks what they’re talking about, which of course they don’t tell her, presumably because of her close relationship with the hunky customs agents she met the other week during the poitín raid at the pub. Meanwhile, over in the tofu and post office aisle, Berni tells John Joe she’s had to close the café while the new kitchen is being fitted, and then forces him to look at the brochures for her new stove and rat incineration system, which she has been carrying around inflicting on people all day. She brags that she’s getting the whole job for only €20,000, but he replies that there’s no way they can do this job for that amount, and that she better not give them a penny till the job is done, because this sounds like a scam. This instantly turns her boastful joy into curdled crap, because of course she’s already given them a €10,000 deposit, and now has zero kitchens. Hopefully she wrote “This better not be a scam” on the memo line of the check, which I am pretty sure would protect her legally.

At the pub, Máire tells Laoise that she’s worried Berni is overextending herself with this new kitchen, but Laoise is completely disinterested in this, probably because she remembers what a little madam Berni was to her about Peadar’s watch a few months ago. Also, because everyone who has ever met Berni enjoys seeing that smug smile wiped off her face from time to time. Laoise offers to take Máire to Gaudi for lunch to make her shut up about Berni, but Máire declines her invitation because she and Fia are going to Galway this afternoon to get tattoos for themselves and the baby and won’t be back until late. This gets Laoise’s motor running, which we can tell by the way she smirks into her coffee cup. It’s the same way she smirks into whichever of Colm’s parts you would like to imagine, or not.

Meanwhile, over at the bar, Sexy Sally is innocently trying to eat her lunch when Tadhg stops by to insult her creepily for a bit. He asks her how the tryst at the Grand Hotel went, and she explains that they ended up not going because the Pink Floyd Laser Show they wanted to attend was sold out. He notes, with absolutely no ulterior motive I’M SURE, that it’s very odd that a show would be sold out midweek, and then “remembers” that he found Peatsaí’s wage packet on the floor and asks her to give it to him, because he obviously needs the cash desperately, what with the way he was crawling around on the floor looking for it. I’m pretty sure most people would bother looking for an envelope full of money they dropped, Tadhg. It’s not as if you caught Peatsaí hooking on the corner.

Berni and John Joe burst into the café looking for the builders, and she panics when the place is empty. John Joe responds by smirking and saying, “I told you so,” reminding us what a loyal friend he is. Just then Kit and the crew arrive with boxes full of new kitchen, so Berni offers to go get them lunch while they’re working. On her way out she notices some light fixtures that aren’t the ones she ordered, and he explains that they’re for a job they’re doing later, and that they’re far too nice to go in a dump like this anyway, ha ha. This causes Berni to start holding the lights up to see how they’d look and purse her lips so hard she nearly sucks her scarf down her throat.

Meanwhile, David and Pádraig are walking down Windmill And Murder Boulevard, the deserted gravel road through swampiest Norway we saw Bobbi-Lee hobbling down earlier. If it turns out this was an elaborate set constructed in the Ros na Rún studio, I’m going to be very impressed. Pádraig asks, very reasonably, why they couldn’t have driven the bloody car to the still rather than walking, and David explains it’s because he drove the car earlier and he doesn’t want people to see it. Oh, for God’s sake, David, given the vast empty expanse of absolute nothingness we can see, this place is literally miles and miles from anything. There’s nobody out there to see you, apart from a cow or two and possibly a lost CND protester. David tries to put a positive spin on this ordeal by commenting on the fresh air and beautiful scenery they are enjoying, which Pádraig points out includes a huge pile of garbage beside the road. Because of some complex stupidity I won’t go into, David decides they need to stop what they are doing and haul off the junk, so he starts running the 27 miles back to town to fetch a van. I can’t even with this.

At the B&B, Sally is scolding Peatsaí for telling Tadhg their sexy hotel-related business, and then slams his wage packet down on the table. She tells him she called the hotel and they said they were plenty of tickets left for the allegedly sold-out gig, so she demands to know what’s going on. He starts spewing a bunch of blarney, but when she tells him to knock it off, he admits that he’s finding it difficult to be living paycheck-to-paycheck now after being the billionaire owner of both Microsoft and Apple back in America. He says she deserves better, and starts to leave, but she stops him and tells him that her late husband was wealthy and bought her everything she wanted, but you know what she misses about him? For Peatsaí’s sake, I hope it’s a scraggly ponytail. No, it’s company, and sparkling conversation and so on, but since those in short supply in this town, she guesses she will stick with Peatsaí.

Bobbi-Lee is harassing Micheál for money, telling him the people who ran that rubbish contest that gave Gráinne money for her stupid seaweed must have some more cash lying around she could use to print some more CDs. You can’t argue with that logic. Micheál, of course, cannot believe this nonsense he’s hearing and walks away, leaving her waving her Boobi-Lee CDs around at no one in particular, and hands a passing Colm a note from Laoise that says “Máire is gone; come sex me up.” That’s my translation.

Berni returns to the café with a towering plate of 900 sandwiches, and is disturbed to find that it’s empty, with tumbleweeds blowing through and grim Norwegian windmills on either side of where the counter used to be. She tries to call Kit and gets a busy signal, and when she opens the boxes he delivered earlier, instead of being full of kitchen, pigeons and bats fly out and attack her. This may be metaphorical.

There is a break, and the Ros na Rún title card with the waves beating against the rocky shore would be a lot funnier if it now included Gráinne wandering across the rocks looking for seaweed and then slipping and falling in. Picture it and tell me you don’t smile. Anyway, Sally arrives at the pub and pretends to Tadhg that she’s broken up with Peatsaí, which makes him very happy indeed, but then Peatsaí shows up and they start making out and twerking and so on, and everybody laughs at Tadhg’s thwarted plan. They’re all in favor of this Sally-Peatsaí romance now, but they’ll change their tune when she gets pregnant. He pays Mo the rent he owes her, and then he and Sally announce they’re off on a trip after all, not to the Pink Floyd Laser Show at the Grand Hotel, but to the rather more modest Bananarama Laser Show at a bus shelter in Bray.

Back at the café, Berni is on the phone with the bank, who report that Kit cashed the check for €10,000 half an hour ago and there’s nothing they can do about it. Apparently Berni’s bank doesn’t have CCTV or anything, which will teach her not to bank at Cindi’s Money Shack. And this whole experience will teach her not to hire builders whose vans say “Kitchen Scams While U Wait” on the side. Bobbi-Lee drops by asking for her €1000 back, but Berni tells her she doesn’t have it anymore, because she gave it to Kit to buy those fancy lights. Oh, Berni. On the plus side, this experience will give a whole bunch of people the opportunity to tell Berni “I told you so,” which is usually her role.

Máire’s trip to Galway with Fia has been cancelled, presumably because Fia and Liam Óg are in jail for vandalism and shoplifting respectively, so she’s back at the B&B, conveniently just in time for Colm to let himself in with the key Laoise has given him. She attacks him with a rolling pin, as one does, and accuses him of being a thief until a sheepish Laoise appears in her robe, causing Máire to swoon to the heavens for the second time today. Well, the second time we’ve seen on camera. There have probably been some others, such as when the gas bill came, and when all the coins didn’t fall off the shelf on Tipping Point.

Back on the lunar surface, Pádraig is whinging as he and David load the junk appliances into Micheál’s borrowed van. Just then the Gardaí drive up to investigate this suspicious behavior, so Pádraig hilariously takes off running across the fields, which is incredibly suspicious, and not just because he runs like a cartoon character, with his feet never touching the ground and puffs of smoke trailing behind him.

At the café, Berni, Bobbi-Lee, Mack, and Dee are waiting for the cops to arrive, though they’re not hopeful. Mack angrily asks why the Gardaí can’t find the crooks, and Berni awesomely replies, “Because they don’t know where they are.” Heh. Dee looks pained, though it’s unclear whether it’s because she’s sad for Berni or because she’s in a room with three people she hates. Berni tells Mack she won’t be able to buy his share of the business now, which starts a big fight between the two of them, which then snowballs to include the other two, Dee because Mack kept this detail from her and Bobbi-Lee because she just doesn’t want to feel left out.

The Gardaí have brought David and what turns out to be Berni’s old kitchen back to town and are questioning him in the middle of the street. He tells them he can’t possibly be a criminal, as evidenced by the fact that everyone down at the station knows him, especially the superintendent. Hee. Berni arrives and vouches for David, and then the cop takes her away to identify the remains of her beloved kitchen, which are so decomposed they may need to use dental records.

Meanwhile, running the House of the Rising Sun is clearly taking a toll on poor Máire, because she’s yelling at Laoise for ho-ing around with a known criminal. Laoise explains that “It’s Complicated,” quoting her perpetual Facebook relationship status for the past ten years. And over at Gaudi, on the other side of this Grease “Summer Nights” tribute, John Joe is telling Colm he can’t believe he’s going out with Laoise. Of course Colm clarifies that they’re not going out, they’re just having sex, or as I imagine you say in Irish since no one ever actually has anything, sex is on them.

David has tracked fugitive Pádraig down to the wooded area where he’s been hiding under a tree waiting to inform the first person who came along that he “Almost drowned in a bloody drain.” Of course this is just like Pádraig, complaining about every little thing. David tells him he’s managed to shake the cops and now they’ve got work to do, but Pádraig is quite clear that he, like Bobbi-Lee, is sure as hell not going to do any work, so stop asking. He shouts at David that he’s going to end up in jail if he doesn’t knock off this poitín nonsense, but David says he’s done too much work to quit now, and besides, being able to make alcohol out of everyday ingredients will be a very useful skill when he ends up in prison.

Berni and Bobbi-Lee return to the café, which has been the scene of many culinary crimes over the years, but today is also the scene of an actual crime. Berni bursts into tears of hopelessness and Bobbi-Lee hugs her sympathetically as she weeps. This would really be a good time for Bobbi-Lee to tell her, “Oh, I forgot to tell you, your son wants to sleep with me, and if you don’t give me €4000, I’m taking him up on the offer.” Maybe next episode!