Daly Descent into Madness: Katy Edition

Season 23, Episode 47

First aired February 12, 2019

Today, on a very special Ros na Rún, everyone expresses their emotions honestly and constructively and honors themselves and those around them by acting in ways that reaffirm human dignity and show compassion and empathy to all. Ha ha, I’m kidding, everyone is a complete fucking basket case as always.

We open with a montage of various people flipping through a prop magazine printed on an extremely stiff paper stock that is definitely used by a lot of actual magazines, that’s for sure. The pasted-on photo that catches first Dee’s and then Tadhg’s eye features Jason in a tux with a pretty blonde woman identified as his “partner,” Somebody Ní NotKaty from Cork. I should point out that Dee and Tadhg are looking at their magazines in their respective kitchens, although I do enjoy the mental image of the two of them hanging out flicking through magazines and pointing out hairstyles they do and do not think would look good on themselves. Anyway, there is a lot of eyebrow raising, presumably because they subscribed to Hiya! magazine to see photos of celebrities, not Effing Jason, but then Tadhg is interrupted by Frances, who has let herself in to argue pointlessly with him about how they need to divide their assets and, you know, get divorced already. He’s rude and dismissive before walking out on her, and she sighs loudly and looks surprised, because she has never met him before.

Over at the café, intermittent hoodlums Sorcha and Adam are celebrating the fact that she has completed her extensive health and safety training and been certified by the EU to start pumping gas today. I hope there is money in the special effects budget for the inevitable fiery explosion we get when she flicks her lit cigarette at a puddle of spilled gasoline to “burn it off.” Cóilí Jackie arrives and she starts haranguing him because he is dressed inappropriately (i.e., the exact same way he is always dressed) for his court date today, and he pahs and bahs that he’s not going because they’ll fine him either way, and also he’s curious whether failure to appear is a misdemeanor or a felony or what.

Back at one of the many Daly-occupied residences springing up around town, Mack is reading the photo caption out loud to Dee and John Joe, even the hard words with fadas on them and five silent letters in a row. John Joe asks Dee if Katy’s said anything to her to indicate she knew about this, and Dee says no, but speculates that perhaps this is why Katy’s been in a bad mood lately. I’m not sure how you tell with Katy, but OK. Mack says he’s sure Katy doesn’t know or else there would have been a lot more tearful screaming around here, and just then she walks in, causing them to act totally non-suspiciously by standing side by side and greeting her in unison, as if the teacher has walked in just as they all lit their cigarettes. She complains about this and that for a while before noticing that they are all silent and standing completely still in hopes she will think they are mannequins and will go away, and when she asks them what’s going on, they all look at each other nervously and try to figure out which one she will be able to catch if they start running: the one who just had a triple bypass, the one who was on crutches for the past eight months, or the pregnant one.

Back at the café, Sorcha is fretting to her new BFF Adam that she’s worried the judge will punish Cóilí Jackie more severely if he doesn’t show up to court, but Adam replies that he has trouble feeling sorry for him considering he brought all this on himself by dumping all that manure on that orphan or whatever. Who can remember? She starts banging on about poor Cóilí this and pitiful Jackie that, and then Adam helpfully points out that Cóilí Jackie actually has had a hard time of it lately, especially the bit where Sorcha slammed his head into a table and ran away with all his money while he bled out on the floor. He walks out as she sighs heavily and rolls her eyes, and this definitely seems like a solid friendship that will last through good times and bad, by which I mean approximately four minutes.

Meanwhile, David has summoned Berni outside, where Tony is writing her a ticket just because she has parked her car with two wheels on the curb and one wheel on a fire hydrant. I mean, if this isn’t a fascist state I don’t know what is. She snatches it off her windshield and asks him what the hell he’s doing, even though like all of Tony’s activities it’s not very complicated or multidimensional, and then they argue for a while. David, who doesn’t like it when Mommy and Daddy fight, points out desperately that, in Tony’s defense, he’s just doing his job, plus Máire is pinned under the car, but Berni tells him to mind his own business, the way she does EXACTLY NEVER. When screaming at Tony doesn’t work, she switches tacks and suggests they go inside and talk civilly over a nice scone—like, one of the ones that hasn’t fallen on the floor and everything—but he walks off, knowing that at this café, the question isn’t whether the food has fallen on the floor, but rather whether it fell on the floor in the kitchen or in the toilets.

Chez Daly, Katy is looking at Who’s That? magazine and sadly offers that, since they’re not together anymore, Jason is free to date anyone he wants, even some probable skank from Cork. Mack carries on some more about how Jason should have told her about it, so Dee drags him out of the house before he makes things any worse, leaving John Joe to tell Katy that perhaps this is for the best because now she can get on with her life. To everyone’s surprise, she does not scream at him, “I am getting on with my life, asshole!” like we all expect her to, showing that she is clearly rattled by this and not herself at all given that we have seen her scream at people and call them assholes for asking what the salad dressing choices are. She declares grimly that she deserves this, because what goes around comes around, and the double-glazed look in her eyes suggest that we may be heading into a “Katy’s Descent Into Madness” storyline.

Laoise, whom we had kind of forgotten existed, arrives at the elephant sanctuary or wherever Adam works and tells him that Micheál won’t be in today because he’s gone to Réailtín’s school play. After taking a second to remember who Réailtín is, Adam starts complaining that he’s rushed off his feet, as demonstrated by the fact that he is attached to the counter by cobwebs, and also that he needs someone to cover for him while he goes to the bank to deposit yesterday’s takings, minus the 80 percent he skimmed off the top. (Sadly, I am making up that last part, though we all know that old, fun Adam totally would have done it.) Laoise’s response is basically, “Sucks to be you,” which is really her response to everything, and then she and her comedy basket of vegetables wander off just as Sorcha arrives to report that she’s spoken to the court and, shockingly, they agree that it will hurt his case if Cóilí Jackie fails to appear. Because Sorcha is his best friend, at least for the next thirty seconds, Adam keeps the eye-rolling to a minimum and also refrains from telling her he could not possibly give less of a shit about Cóilí Jackie, instead volunteering that she should go talk to Frances, the only person around here CJ pays any attention to. Yes, she has years of experience dealing with rude old cranks. She loves everything about this plan and just wants to make one tweak to it, which is that Adam go talk to Frances while she keeps an eye on Keane’s from her post at the gas station across town. He argues that he can’t go because he’s flat out, what with the zero customers we have seen there all day, but eventually he agrees and wanders off. Well, there’s no way this is going to end badly.

Back at the café, Berni is in a foul mood over Tony writing her another ticket for parking her car in a cemetery, and it doesn’t help when Mack gives her the awesome advice that she “should sort this out.” I should see if Mack accepts my insurance, because I have been looking for a therapist. Briain interrupts by handing Berni her phone and saying she needs to call Bobbi Lee back, and then she snaps at him for violating her privacy by answering her phone even though he could clearly see it was only Bobbi Lee calling, not the gonorrhea clinic or whatever. You sure you want her back, Tony?

At a table, we get our first Pádraig sighting in a while, meaning the #FreePádraig hashtag I have single-handedly kept trending on Twitter for the past three months was successful. He’s minding his own business, trying to choke quietly on a gristle sandwich, when Katy interrupts to harass him about parsnips or something. She says he needs to single-handedly run the restaurant, go shopping, and change the oil in her car so she can spend time with Jay, and when Pádraig starts to protest that she’s not the only one with a child, adding that Sam (who we presume is at school and not under Pádraig’s direct supervision, but whatever) will need extra care once Sonia starts some course we haven’t heard anything about until just now. Presumably she is working on her master’s in wagonry. Tadhg, who has been eavesdropping from the table behind Pádraig, turns around and hisses that Katy is the boss and he’s the employee, so he better shut up and do what she says OR ELSE. Pádraig weakly tries to tell him to mind his own business, but Tadhg swats at him again and Katy does absolutely nothing, so Pádraig heads off to iron the broccoli, but we suspect this is not the last we will hear of this. I hope this ends with the entire town projectile vomiting like the last time someone annoyed Pádraig.

Adam returns to the gas pumps to tell Sorcha that Frances has talked Cóilí Jackie into going to court after all, much to the relief of all of us who had lit candles and organized prayer vigils for him. He asks if anyone came into the ice cream parlor or wherever he works, which Sorcha has clearly forgotten she was supposed to be paying attention to, so she vaguely burbles that she didn’t see anyone, mostly because she wasn’t looking.

Katy huffs into one of her many houses carrying a giant purse that she has clearly purchased just so she can haul this magazine around. She turns on some weird music of the sort that would accompany a TV-movie scene of Shannen Doherty slowly losing her mind and then hoists the magazine onto the counter and starts staring madly at the photo of Jason and his man-stealing succubus. She ignores a call from Pádraig and then attempts to furiously fold the magazine in half while glaring bonkersly into the middle distance, and then she angrily throws it in the bin before exiting the house for a nice stroll down Crazy Street.

Back at whatever manner of business Keane’s is, Pádraig is buying a box of celery and he and Adam share a laugh about how bitches be crazy and so on, but unlike when all the other men on this show have these conversations, these two are gay, so there is an added element of “but we love them because they went to our proms with us.” Just then, Adam looks under the counter and notices the giant bag of money he’d been planning to take to the bank is missing, and when Pádraig protests that, well, he didn’t take it, Adam grinds his teeth so hard sparks fly out and hisses, “No, you didn’t, but I know who did!” Oh, thank goodness, Adam hasn’t gotten fired in a couple of weeks and it was making me very anxious.

After the break, during which an angry TG4 robot with rollercoasters for arms pollutes the ocean by throwing motorhomes in it, Tony and Berni are arguing again, this time over a tip. This is why it is always important for both parties to clarify the meaning of “just the tip” before proceeding. There is back-and-forthing, and when Tony says she sounds like she wants to forget their relationship ever happened—as do we all—she protests that they were only together for two seconds, which is barely half the duration of most of her relationships. Of course, most of Tony’s life consists of shooing cows out of the road, so two seconds with Berni is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to him and he is very invested in it, so he does not seem to appreciate her dismissing it as just one of the many things that has happened to her recently, such as brushing her hair or putting out the many fires Bobbi Lee has started while trying to make toast.

After Tony stomps off, vowing revenge, Berni returns inside, where we find Sorcha declaring to Cóilí Jackie that his only being fined €1000 is iontach. He, however, finds it less iontach than seafóid, because he doesn’t think he did anything wrong and doesn’t have €1000 anyway. Again, didn’t he get back all the stolen money after Sorcha dumped it in Adam’s trashcan? (That’s not a euphemism, but it should be.) And speaking of Adam, just then he thunders in, rolling his eyes up into his head so hard the overhead oxygen masks drop down, and starts yelling at Sorcha to give him back his money right now. She says she has no idea what she’s talking about, burbling a wide-eyed “Gabh mo leithscéal?,” but he snaps back that he knows she stole the money from the porno theater or wherever he works and she better give it back right now. He might want to moderate his tone considering Sorcha has an extensive history of MMA-ing her loved ones into furniture brain-first. She denies it, but he’s convinced this was all an elaborate plan to cheat him out of €17 and his Duran Duran pencil case, whips out his phone, and calls the Gardaí to report a robbery.

Fortunately for him, our local Garda Tony is sitting just outside in his patrol car, possibly because he has locked himself inside it and can’t get out. He’s looking sadly at the engagement ring he tried to give Berni, which he has apparently been carrying around in the glove compartment all this time just like whichever other engagement ring somebody on this show carried around in his car for ages until he had the opportunity to accuse David of stealing it. Anyone else remember this? Fortunately, a call comes in on his radio before he has the chance to accidentally swallow it or get it stuck up his nose, and it’s one of his fellow officers, informing him that longtime no-goodnik Adam Mac Donnacha has reported a robbery in Ros na Rún. Finally, that hostage scenario/police shootout we’ve been waiting for!

Over at the pub, Mack, Dee, Bobbi Lee, and Niall—a grouping that seems somewhat unlikely, but OK—is having lunch together. Bobbi Lee tut-tuts to Tadhg about his boy being out floozing around with some hussy, and he tells her that he’s not Jason’s keeper, and she responds that still, he should try putting himself in poor Katy’s shoes. I’m not sure what exactly she thinks Tadhg should have done about all this, and also cannot remember ever seeing Bobbi Lee give even half a crap about Katy before. He dismisses her and tries to walk away, but she gets in a final zinger before he’s out of earshot: she’s surprised he has any kind of relationship with Áine and Frances after the shenanigans he’s pulled. This seems to give him something to think about, demonstrating that even someone who blathers on as much as Bobbi Lee does occasionally manage to hit on something meaningful.

Apropos of nothing, Dee mentions that she’s heard that Jason’s new girlfriend is a member of something called the Sea Cruising Services, which I do not seem to be able to find any mention of online but which I am pretty sure is that Scientology boat that goes around kidnapping people. Niall mentions that he was a member of the Sea Cruising Services back in Donegal, where people frequently fall out of boats I guess, and then says that maybe he should get back into it. He asks Bobbi Lee if she’d be interested in signing up with him, which of course she is not, because the last time she ventured out into nature with Niall she came back with a giant poo stripe down the back of her white jeans. (In case you missed that one, I will clarify that the poo was not hers.) I have no idea what any of this is about, but I am going to assume it is some kind of volunteer coast guard which may also be part of the Church of Scientology, and that it is being introduced here so we can have a rescue-at-sea storyline in the season finale.

Officer Tony has arrived at the café, and the sigh of relief from the assorted townspeople is palpable. “Palpable” means “nonexistent,” right? By now Adam and Sorcha are standing in the middle of the floor yelling at each other and waving their fingers in each others’ faces, and all we need is for Sorcha to snatch off her earrings and Adam to ask somebody to hold his wig for this to be the best episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race ever. The eventual resolution is that Laoise, noticing that Keane’s was unattended, stopped by and took the giant bag of money herself, and she arrives to this hot mess to shout at Adam a lot for being stupid and irresponsible. Now, y’all know I love me some Adam, but I have to admit it was pretty dumb of him to wander off across town leaving a big bag of money lying around, especially given that I am not even sure Keane’s has a front wall.

Back at the pub, we see Tadhg quietly calling Malachaí and saying he needs to make an appointment to see him, but we will have to wait until another time to find out what it’s about, because then we are quickly back out in the street, where Tony is lying in wait for Berni and springs out of his police car like a jack-in-the-box as she walks past. It would have been awesome if she’d been so startled she’d spun around and karate chopped him in the windpipe, but alas, all she does is roll her eyes at him and purse her lips so hard it sucks his eyebrows off. He hands her a slip of paper, which he proudly announces is a bill for all the money he spent on her while they were together: €479. I cannot believe there is not, like, an “and thirty-three cents” tacked onto the end of this. Berni cannot believe the bullshittery she is being exposed to right now, but is so desperate to put an end to it that she whips out her checkbook, pulls aside Briain, who happens to be walking by on his way to blast his quads or whatever, and spins him around to use his back as a flat surface to write Tony a check. Well, this is why I always keep a man around who has lats like a drafting table. (The one with glutes of steel is just for fun.) Briain is confused, which is the default state of affairs in any relationship with Berni, and then she shoves a check for €500 at Tony. He slinks off, and then Briain hands Berni her phone, which she left somewhere earlier in the day, and she notices she has five missed calls from her mother. Oh, dear. I’m not sure which is worse, picking up your phone to find five missed calls from your mother or five missed calls from the person who has been stalking you with a machete. At this, she yells at Briain for not answering her phone, unlike fifteen minutes ago, when she was yelling at him because he did answer it. Briain, blink twice if you need us to call Family Services.

Elsewhere in the street, where all the best fights are taking place today, Adam is attempting to apologize to Sorcha, but she tells him to go to hell. His explanation is that, you know, she’s a thieving thief who thieves, so…. He’s got you there, Sorch. We expect her to reach across and pull his bottom lip up over his head, but surprisingly she instead crumples and, dropping all her usual bravado, admits that what she did was terrible, and then she made things worse by dragging him into it, but that she’s truly sorry for all of it. He pulls her in and gives her a giant hug, and it seems all is well between the two of them again, at least until the next time they see each other or until Fia comes back and he dumps Sorcha like a hot potato, whichever comes first.

At Gaudi, moderator Bobbi Lee has been joined by expert panelists Máire and Gráinne for a discussion forum about how terrible Jason is. Katy, who is standing right there, does not seem to be enjoying this for some reason, and she keeps saying things that any normal person would recognize as hints that they should change the subject, such as, “Well, it’s all done now so let’s move on!” and “Well, we are all going to get global-warming-ed to death within the next few years anyway, so in the long run it doesn’t really matter!” Of course this group does not understand how social cues work and instead responds to these platitudes by doubling down, declaring that Jason must have been cheating on Katy with this floozy and then hounding her with questions about whether this was the first time he had cheated on her or whether it was just the latest in a pattern. Máire then starts clutching her aorta and wailing about how terrible this is on Cuán and Jay, informing Katy that if she were a non-horrible person, she would put all this aside and make things work with Jason for the sake of the children. This carries on for a while and eventually Katy loses it, screaming at Máire and running out of the building. Dee, who has been sitting at a nearby table watching all this but doing absolutely nothing, then snaps at all of them, because of course it is her job to play psychological games with Katy until one of them goes berserk and goes running out of the room on a tearful kidnapping spree.

Outside, Berni runs into Briain, who seems to be spending the day walking up and down the block waiting to be pounced on with some kind of Berni-related abusive nonsense. She’s just gotten off the phone with her mother and is pleased to report that everything is fine, and that in fact her mother doesn’t even remember why she was calling. I am not sure an elderly parent calling five times in one hour and then immediately forgetting why she did it is exactly an “all clear,” but I guess we will cross that Alzheimer’s/dementia bridge when we come to it. Briain, however, having been yanked around by Berni all day, rolls his eyes and tries to walk off, but she grabs him and starts semi-apologizing in her usual manner, which involves whingeing endlessly about how downtrodden she is, but he snits off. Go, Briain!

Further down the street, Tadhg runs into Frances and, shockingly, acts like a decent human being, saying he thinks they should schedule an appointment with the mediator ASAP. Frances is surprised, as are we, and we hope this doesn’t mean he is about to murder her.

A breathless Katy arrives home and finds the stereo is blasting for some reason, and to make matters worse, is on Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown FM. She turns it off frantically, and then she develops super-hearing of the type people who are going crazy on TV often get. She hears footsteps, and water dripping in Derry, and a group of banshees flying down the street screaming, and a spider farting, and then the camera starts spinning around her, which we’re sure is not helping, either. This goes on for about 11 minutes, during which she does not blink and her eyes widen to an astonishing 0.3 MegaDees, and when the inevitable car alarm starts going off, she madly grabs two fistfuls of her hair and slumps across the counter. Well, everybody who chose Katy in the “Which Daly sister will completely lose it first?” pool, YOU WIN!