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!
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