The Important Thing Is That Adam Is Not Gay

Season 21, Episode 61

First aired 4 April 2017

We open with a faceless, mysterious stranger all in black, who may or may not be Johnny Cash, or possibly one of Depeche Mode, loitering across the street from the pharmacy, casing the joint. Janice arrives to open up for the day, and Depeche Cash puts on his gloves and looks like he’s about to make his move, but then a customer arrives, and he changes his mind and skulks off. Well, Janice sure dodged that bullet!

And now we are reminded that Niamh is a person who is sometimes on this show! She’s at home studying for her exams, and O’Shea, ever the observant detective, notes that Niamh is looking at the same book she looked at yesterday, which seems highly suspicious to her. Clearly O’Shea does not understand how studying works. Grumpy Niamh tells her to buzz off, and refuses her offer of a ride to the exam, because she’s booked a hackney. Why she doesn’t want to arrive at college in a police car driven by her mother is beyond me. O’Shea wanders away, probably to review today’s list of complaints against David, and Niamh sneakily reaches into a folder and pulls out … a copy of today’s exam! Well, I think now we know the nail-biting pulse-pounder that’s going to carry us through to the end of the season.

We switch from a scene of mother-daughter domestic bliss to one of father-daughter domestic bliss in the form of Micheál and Réailtín, who are still arguing about who killed whose mother and so on. Of course, this is all Laoise’s fault, and secondarily, society’s. Thanks, Laoise and society. Anyway, Micheál tells her to do something and she retorts, “Or, what, you’ll kill me, too?”, and we get the impression this has been her response to everything lately, which we’re sure hasn’t become at all tiresome to Micheál, or made him wonder if perhaps killing her up just a little might not be an entirely terrible idea.

At the pub, we learn that Colm has become Mack’s stockbroker, which isn’t completely random and totally out of the blue, that’s for sure! Colm tries to explain how the investments are paying off, but of course Mack is confused, because he doesn’t know anyone named Dow Jones, and is pretty sure he’s never been to Nasdaq, either, unless that’s the name of that bar in Eyre Square where he woke up in the ladies’ toilets that one time. No, wait, that was Burger King. Colm, sensing the futility of this conversation, goes over to flirt with Mo for a while, which gives Tadhg an opportunity to tell Mack that they’ve all lost their minds if they think Colm is anything other than a no-good Donegal sleazeball and possible grave-robbing prostitute. That last part is implied. Colm asks Mo out on a date, or something—it’s always hard to tell with him—and she turns him down and bops off, so Tadhg takes his Harassment Roadshow over to him and reminds him of that time Anto punched him in the stomach in the street, and then, in typical Tadhg fashion, makes it all about geography somehow. Because, of course, if you didn’t grow up within a 50-foot radius of Tadhg’s house, you are a fool.

Over at the café, Fia is being flirtatious and seductive with Adam by reminding him how much she burped last night at dinner. Way to win over your, errr, “bi-curious” boyfriend who’s already about three-quarters of the way to Gayville. She starts banging on about how lovely it will be when they move into a place of their own, because they’ll be able to play music and burp as loudly as they want, but FOR SOME REASON he ignores this line of discussion and instead points out that she’s going to be late to, umm, the place she’s supposed to be going, which is not here. She continues to wax poetic about their upcoming life of domestic bliss as she packs up her stuff to go, and he looks completely sick, and not just because he’s wearing a hoodie that’s the same color as his hair.

At the pharmacy, Jason is being outwitted by the baby’s pram, which is of course all Katy’s fault. If you have ever seen this show before, I don’t have to explain to you why. Mack arrives and they have a lovely chat, by which I mean Mack says hello and Jason gives him a laser death stare until he goes away. Katy looks stricken, because her fantasy of having a threesome with Jason and Mack, which once seemed within reach, now seems to be slipping away. Over at the counter, there is a confusing discussion about how everyone in the village goes by at least three different names for some reason, which makes it difficult for Janice, a pharmacist from The Outside World, to fill prescriptions. For example, Jimmy Phateen is also Séamus Ó hUiginn, and also Princess Michael of Kent. I don’t know, either. The gist is that Máire swoops in and saves the day, because she knows everyone’s multiple aliases, such as how Tadhg Ó Direáin is also Keith Richards. But because Máire giveth and then taketh away, she follows up this act of heroism by going over to Katy and Jason and making a big production out of how the baby doesn’t look like either of them, and then calls Mack over to ask him who he thinks the baby looks like. Ouch. Mack brightly tells the “happy” “parents” to bring the baby over sometime so he and Dee can get to know him better, which TOTALLY does not sound like the worst idea in the world, and then leaves so Katy can defend him and Jason can bitch about everything. It must be even more fun at Katy and Jason’s house than it is at Micheál and Réailtín’s house.

Niamh has fallen asleep on the sofa and misses a phone call from “Heacnaí.” Well, with a name like that, I guess you have no other choice than to grow up to drive a hackney.

Laoise arrives at the pub and Micheál is rude to her, even by his standards. I suppose when you have as many friends as he does, you can afford to alienate everyone. She tells him that she’s not to blame for what happened, and that maybe if he weren’t such an arsehole all the time, Réailtín wouldn’t be such a lying little madam. Also, alcoholic. Elsewhere in the pub, Mo is doing her best Bobbi-Lee impression, breaking dishes and telling everyone to go frig themselves, and then asks Tadhg to reward her by giving her a few days off. It’s like my coworker who never comes in and never does any work but then carries on about how she needs a vacation all the time. Tadhg reminds her that she just had a day off back in 1989, but says he’ll think about it, which is his way of maintaining control over her and reserving the right to be a dick about it at any point in the future. Meanwhile, Mack invites Jason to join him for a cup of coffee, and he’s all, “I totally would, except I don’t want to, and also I hate you.” Mack asks why Jason has forgiven Katy but not him, and Jason is evasive and leaves without answering. I think the reason is that Jason knows being on Katy’s bad side is much more likely to get a person murdered than being on Mack’s bad side, or at least be subjected to a lot of whining and door slamming.

Over at the B&B, Fia has an actual outfit on an actual dress form, so maybe she hasn’t been making up this whole fashion college thing after all. There’s an idea there, but she needs to turn the “employee at Pirate World” dial down about four notches. Of course Máire gives it some serious side-eye and then sniffs that it’s “interesting,” which in Máire’s world is the worst thing anything or anyone can be, and then she notes that she wouldn’t wear it to the pub. Fia shows remarkable restraint by not telling her that she is not her target audience and that if Máire said she would wear it, she’d throw it in the bin and start over. Máire keeps carrying on about it until she manages to thoroughly insult Fia, who complains that nothing she does is ever good enough for Máire and then stomps off upstairs. Of course then Máire is all, “What did I do? What did I say? Why is she so sensitive?”, so Adam helpfully points out that Fia would probably be less sensitive if Máire weren’t such a bitch all the time. I’m paraphrasing, but not by much.

A knock at the door awakens sleeping beauty Niamh, who goes into a minor panic when she sees the time. Apparently the copy of the exam she mysteriously acquired did not address this scenario. She rings up Mack for Hackney 2.0, but it seems he’s too busy now, presumably wheeling and dealing at the Dublin Stock Exchange with Colm, or being hit over the head with a vase by Dee. Her father, who’s been patiently waiting outside for his cue, finally lets himself in, and she informs him that he will be driving her to Galway immediately. Always a pleasure to see you, whatever your name is!

At the falafel stand or wherever Micheál works, he’s digging through a box full of old junk until he finds an old VHS tape with Réailtín’s name on it. He gives the camera an ambiguous look that suggests it’s something more than The Smurfs Go To Paris, or the episode of Neighbours where Charlene married Scott.

After the break, during which we learn that babies are soft, Mo is at the pharmacy trying to talk Gráinne and Janice into spending a few days in a camper van in a caravan park with her. Surprisingly, Janice, who seems more like a weekend-at-the-Ritz kind of girl, is up for it, whereas Gráinne, who you’d imagine would see it as an opportunity to commune with nature while collecting lichen and dysentery, thinks it sounds terrible. You know it’s bad when she’d rather stay home with David and Pádraig. Janice is hesitant since she just opened the pharmacy, and also there’s that robber she needs to be around for, but Mo tells her she could bring in a locum to cover the medical needs and Máire to cover the busybody needs, so Janice says she’ll think about it. Clearly all these people are too young to have seen the Father Ted where they go to the miserable caravan park and are subjected to excessive rain and even more excessive Graham Norton.

Micheál coaxes Réailtín out of her room and onto the sofa so he can show her the video he found earlier. Of course she is unfamiliar with the ancient technology, having only ever watched 7-second-long InstaWotsit videos on her phone, but he tells her it’s her mother on the video, and to please be a maith cailín and sit down and shut up.

At the pub, Máire has managed to locate Mo, the only person in town kind enough to listen to her complain about what an ungrateful brat Fia is without telling her to shut it. Mo manages to steer the conversation away from Fia-related nonsense and toward the problems Janice is having dealing with everyone in the village’s multiple aliases. This is what happens when you bring in untrustworthy city folk. Eventually Máire decides she’s going to go inflict herself and her services on Janice, which will help solve her name-related headaches, but probably induce pain in other places, such as the ass. She leaves, and Mack literally almost knocks her down on his way in because he’s excited to tell Mo about the new tires he’s bought for the van with his Colm-facilitated earnings. I still cannot believe this income seems to be from legitimate investments and not horse racing or a homemade roulette wheel. They argue for a bit about Mo’s relationship with Colm, and then he shows up and asks Mo if she’ll go car shopping with him in town tomorrow. Mack interrupts to volunteer himself instead, ostensibly because Mo, being a stupid GIRL, doesn’t know the difference between a fan belt and an exhaust. This is big talk from someone who doesn’t know the difference between his arse and his elbow. Mo agrees that Mack should go with him instead, and they both bog off, leaving Colm to look unhappy about this substitution. Presumably this is because now he will have to totally rethink his itinerary for tomorrow, which had consisted of forcing Mo into his underground cult bunker where she would become his bride.

Niamh and her dad return home from her successful exam, and step on each other’s lines a bit as they discuss how lucky it was that she studied exactly the right things. Amazing! O’Shea returns home and treats Eric as if he’s a bad smell and there isn’t enough Air Wick in the world to make him go away. She’s passive-aggressive towards him for a while, and then he volunteers that he’s had an offer to do some PI work for Caitríona, who wants him to dig up some dirt on famous seaweed-faller-downer Annette. He notes that even though he’s turned her down, he’ll still come to town to visit from time to time. Niamh thinks all this is iontach, but O’Shea clearly thinks it is whatever the opposite of iontach is. My vocabulary is limited, so I am going to say drochbhlas. Niamh pops out to the shop, or to buy drugs from Adam or whatever, and O’Shea warns Eric to stay away from them, because they have a nice life, and she doesn’t want him to ruin it with his non-iontach-ness.

Micheál and Réailtín are watching the video, in which Pauline and her period hairstyle are telling Réailtín that she will be loved, and spoiled rotten by her doting dad, and that Pauline will love her and hold her, even though it’ll only be for a short time. The video ends, and between Micheál’s explanation that Pauline was the love of his life and the fact that she didn’t say anything on the video about being afraid he was going to kill her, it seems Réailtín is satisfied and there is a thaw in relations. Too bad you didn’t go look for that video two weeks ago when all this started, Micheál.

At their place, Katy is describing the baby’s dirty nappy to Jason in more detail than either he or we wanted to hear. It almost makes me wish we could go back to discussing Fia’s wind. Jason is in a mood, as always, and then compares spending time with Mack to a nappy full of poo. If being around Mack is a nappy full of poo, I shudder to think what being around Berni or Caitríona is a nappy full of. Anyway, the pair of them argue for a bit about imaginary DNA tests and whatnot, and it’s nothing we haven’t heard before, so let’s move swiftly on to the next thing.

Over at the pharmacy, Annette, whose nose has miraculously made a sudden and complete recovery, is arguing with Janice because she is under the impression she is at an all-you-can-eat drug buffet where she should be able to get anything she wants without a prescription. Janice sends her packing, drugless and in a huff, and then Máire presents Janice with her address book, which has everyone’s various aliases and code names and will therefore be very useful when Áine comes in trying to buy opium under the name Madonna Ciccone. Poor Janice seems confused by everything that’s happening to her, as if she’s just realized she’s moved to Twin Peaks.

Tadhg gives Mo her wage packet and tells her she can have a few days off next week, and on her way out Colm stops her to flirt or harass or molest her. You never know with him. She tells him she’s going home to spend the evening alone in her pajamas, and he tells her she shouldn’t have to change her life because of scumbags like Anto. What about scumbags like Colm? She leaves, and Tadhg heckles Colm across the bar for a while about how he ran off Anto so he can have Mo all to himself. What we really need to spice up this mess is for Bobbi-Lee to get in the middle of it.

O’Shea once again criticizes Niamh’s study habits for a while and then goes out to pick up a takeaway, which gives Niamh the opportunity to get on the phone and place an order for tomorrow’s exam. It seems there’s been a price increase to €50, presumably due to EU surcharges, and Niamh is not happy about it, but she agrees to pay because of course there is no way to do well on an exam other than to buy a copy in advance and memorize it.

Over at Gaudi, Fia is giving Adam diarrhea-face by continuing to carry on about how they need to get their own flat ASAP because Máire is a pain in the ass. Of course Adam would usually agree about what a wagon Máire is, but because he is, shall we say, questioning his life choices right now, he instead argues that she isn’t so bad, and she cooks and cleans for them, and doesn’t ask questions about all the men’s fitness and muscle magazines he subscribes to. Right on cue, Pádraig appears and excitedly shows Fia a picture of the guy he’s got a date with tonight, which is exciting in that we have been wanting him to get some action for a while, but we worry that he’s going out on this date merely as a plot device to advance Adam’s storyline. Anyway, Fia coos that he’s gorgeous, and shows the pic to Adam, who of course says he wouldn’t know, because, as Fia points out, straight (and “straight”) guys are ridiculous with their whole “I have no way of knowing whether George Clooney is handsome because I am super straight!” routine. There’s a bit more discussion of Pádraig and his extreme gayness, during which Adam squirms uncomfortably, and then when Pádraig wanders away, Adam decides that maybe he and Fia should start looking for a flat after all, but that it has to be in an area with a lot of hot women with big jugs, because that’s totes what he’s into. This Adam storyline really is becoming delightful.

Janice, as she closes up the pharmacy for the day, thanks Máire for her help, because she has apparently been hanging around all day translating people’s names and telling Janice all about their hemorrhoid histories and so on. Janice asks if she’d be willing to come work there a couple of days a week, which makes Máire very happy indeed, because she gets bored at home with no one’s lives to meddle in except Fia and Liam Óg. Well, give it a few days and she will develop some new opinions about Adam. Anyway, Janice and Máire say their goodbyes and go their separate ways, and then we see that the mysterious man in black has returned, staring at the pharmacy in a suspicious and criminal, or at least criminal-adjacent, manner. Welcome to the neighborhood, Janice!