A Romantic Bottle of Wine by Gaslight

Season 23, Episode 72

First aired May 9, 2019

Aaaand we’re back! A lot has happened since the last time I was able to recap, much of which involved Michelle being in every scene for no apparent reason, but I will try to catch you up as we go along. We open at Gaudi, which is somehow still in business, just as a power outage plunges the place into darkness. Pádraig arrives and asks Katy why she’s standing at the till in the dark, which at first seems a stupid question, but then we remember that he’s been watching her Dee-facilitated descent into madness for a while and probably just figures this is the next logical step, after ordering 600 lbs. of beef instead of 60 but before getting into an argument with a jar of olives.

At their place, Berni and Briain are discussing the fact that Jude kept them up half the night, and it’s clear they are both fed up with this shite but know they will go to hell if they say it out loud. He presents her with a spa gift certificate and says they’ll go there this afternoon, and you can tell he’s serious because it’s from a legitimate spa in Galway and not just Gráinne kicking you in the spine at Loinnir. He even volunteers Bobbi Lee in absentia to look after Jude while they’re gone, but Berni reminds her that Bobbi Lee has an appointment to see a fortuneteller today, which is apparently a thing she does now. Briain’s suggestion that perhaps Evan could get his arse over here and acknowledge his grandmother’s existence for a change goes nowhere, because, as Berni explains, Evan finds Jude eepy-cray, and is also selfish. Briain frowns a lot at this, which history tells us means he and Evan will be wrestling in the street in the next 15 minutes.

Back at a candlelit Gaudi, Katy and Pádraig are having the most pointless romantic dinner of all time. She hangs up the phone and explains that the electric company won’t have the power back on until tomorrow, and then proceeds to blame him for all this, announcing that the person she just spoke to said somebody called from Gaudi and instructed them to cut the power because they’re switching to a different electric company. This is difficult for me to wrap my head around since here the only choice we have is a) the one power company or b) sitting around in the dark. He angrily announces that he didn’t call, and then they get into a big fight. He says she never comes to work and when she does she just effs everything up, and she counters that she’s got to keep a lot of plates spinning right now, including raising Jay on her own, wanting Mack’s parts, and going insane. To be fair, any of those would be a fulltime job. He gets up to storm out in a huff, but she stops him and says that if there’s a problem, they need to sit down and discuss it like the semi-grownups they are. He announces that she’s the problem and then resumes the huffy exit that she so rudely interrupted earlier, leaving her to get back to her low-speed nervous breakdown.

Over at the B&B, Máire is on the phone with Micheál, who is on the way home from following a Betty Boo tribute band around America. She reports grimly that the hospital is going to release Laoise today even though in Máire’s expert melodramatic opinion she is still on the brink of death, but tells him not to worry if his plane is delayed, because if anything happens she can just bury Laoise in the backyard. Evan goes to answer the door and of course it’s Michelle, who is new since the last time I recapped. As I was saying earlier, she is in 106% of all the scenes on this show now and is everybody’s BFF, including some people who haven’t even met her yet. Somewhere in Dubai, Eoin keeps waking up in a cold sweat moaning, “Cá bhfuil Michelle??!?” I will give you a moment to imagine Eoin sweating and moaning. Anyway, in spite of her perma-smile and jolly headband, we are pretty sure Michelle is at least 75% evil, and will probably end up killing poor Adam, though she’ll be beaming and handing out flowers while she does it. Anyway, Michelle has arrived to tell everyone that she can help out with Laoise when she arrives from the hospital, feeding her porridge with pills in it and sponge-bathing her brainstem and so on. Máire thinks she’ll be all right without her assistance, what with Laoise being in a coma and all, so Michelle tells her if she changes her mind, she’ll be up at the polytunnel. This sends Máire into a fit of existential despair and collapsing onto the linoleum, and when she finishes speaking in tongues she reminds us all that because the polytunnel is where Laoise got attacked, it should be burned to the ground, its ashes thrown into the ocean, and the ocean filled in with cement. She’ll really be upset when she realizes Michelle could also get shot in the penis at the polytunnel like David did. She tells Evan to go up there and check on Michelle later, and take some bin bags with him in which to bring back her inevitably dismembered remains.

At one of the many Daly residences, Dee is trying to whip Katy into a frenzy about Pádraig’s stank attitude, telling her she shouldn’t take any of his crap but should instead march back down there and, like, blow up the restaurant. I appreciate that Dee is so committed to destroying Katy that she is all right with everyone else in town being collateral damage. Katy thinks that perhaps Pádraig has a point, what with her being an incompetent amphetamine addict and all, so Dee switches tacks and tries rallying her around a feminist flag, declaring that Katy will be letting down Gloria Steinem, Adele, and Captain Marvel if she doesn’t storm outside and start stabbing people. Dee then produces a bottle of wine and pours Katy a glass the size of her head, explaining that she deserves a little tipple since she’s had a hard day and doesn’t have to go back to work today anyway. Katy protests weakly, but eventually gives in, proclaiming, “I suppose one won’t do any harm.” She said the same thing when she had sex with Mack, and we all know how that turned out. She drains half the glass and then goes to the other room to answer a call from Electricity Incorporated, at which point Dee refills her glass to the brim and smiles evilly. I love that Dee’s transformation into Dark Phoenix as played by Bette Davis is complete.

At the pub, Bobbi Lee is musing about what the fortuneteller might see, and Mo replies that all she’s going to see is Bobbi Lee’s money going into her purse. Snerk. I’ve missed the Bobbi Lee/Mo banter and am glad Mo is back behind the bar so it can resume. Local charwoman Annette tries to join the conversation, and Mo semi-engages her while Bobbi Lee gives her a hilarious look that seems to say, “Why is it talking to me?” If you’ve forgotten, Mo and Bobbi Lee are operating under a theory that Annette and Peatsaí are having an illicit affair, so they decide to engage in some light entrapment, which involves Bobbi Lee, who throughout this scene is drinking out of an empty cup, winking conspiratorially at Mo, swiveling on her barstool like a Bond villain, and clearing her throat before asking a series of leading questions. Sadly her foolproof plan is thwarted by the fact that it makes no sense, and then Peatsaí strolls in and announces that he’s got to go to Galway for the day for his flamenco-dancing lessons or whatever, and Annette suddenly remembers also has to go somewhere, but totally coincidentally. Clearly they learned the art of subtlety from watching Are You Being Served? They wander off, and Mo shoots her best suspicious look at them. Well, the important thing is that Peatsaí and Annette are going off to have hot sex in the backseat of his Ford Fiesta or whatever, since there is obviously NO OTHER MORE LIKELY THING THAT COULD BE GOING ON APPARENTLY.

Over at the David’s Crotch Memorial Shed, Michelle is on the phone trying to arrange lodging for her new homeless friend who isn’t Andy, that’s for sure. Just then he strolls in, and since this is the first time I’ve recapped since his return from the dead, let me take a moment to say AIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE IT’S ANDY!!!!!! With that out of the way, she hangs up and an episode of House Hunters International breaks out as she starts rattling off a list of properties she’s identified, enumerating the pros and cons of each. Will he choose the one with the amazing pool that’s at the end of the airport runway, or the one with a chef’s kitchen that has a view of a burning nuclear power plant? He protests leadingly that even if she pays his deposit, there’s no way he’ll be able to pay the rent, so she whips out her wallet stuffed with cash and says he doesn’t need to worry his pretty li’l head about it, because she’s going to help him. So, my question is: in the season finale, is Andy going to kill Michelle or is Michelle going to kill Andy?

Back at Daly Central, we see that Katy has drunk the entire bottle of wine. I’m sure Dee didn’t waste her good wine on Operation: Destroy Katy, so I’m guessing it cost €2 at Aldi and is made from grapes grown in the lush fertile hills of downtown Latvia. Dee wanders in and starts fretting dramatically about how she just remembered that she was supposed to go into Bearna today to buy a TENS machine, which I have never heard of, so I’m going to assume it’s like a Roomba that pushes the baby back in if it starts coming out too soon. Alas, she is too enfeebled to drive, and Mack is on an airport run. Katy suggests that surely he’ll be back before too long, so Dee adds that the airport in question is Charles de Gaulle. Katy continues suggesting alternatives, such as seeing if Vince sells them or if Máire has one she’s not using right now, so Dee starts having full-body back spasms and says she can feel the baby’s arm hanging out and so on, so Katy volunteers to drive into town to get it since she’s only, like, seven-eighths drunk. Dee protests weakly, but Katy grabs the keys and staggers out, at which point Dee grabs her phone, calls the Gardaí, and says she’s just seen a drunk woman getting into a car heading towards Bearna, and why yes, she does have the license plate memorized! OMG, Dee is truly the worst, by which I mean THE BEST.

After the break, Michelle is continuing to shoot banknotes in Andy’s direction like a malfunctioning ATM. He’s delighted with this jackpot, although he does miss the part where he hits someone over the head with a tire iron first. The phone rings and it’s Evan, and Michelle tells him sure, he can come over right now, which gives Andy a sudden case of diarrhea face. At least I think that’s what his face is doing behind his insane beard. If you’ve ever wondered what Che Guevara would look like if he were still alive, Andy is answering that question. He suddenly remembers that he is, errr, supposed to be sitting his leaving cert exams over in, ummm, Bray right now, so he’d better run, so she tells him to call her when he’s found a suitable place to live and she’ll rush right over with another truckload of money. Oh, FFS, Michelle. I really hope Michelle turns out to be Europe’s #1 counterfeiter, and that all this throwing cash around is just her way of getting it all into circulation, although of course it will end with Adam going to prison because, well, Adam.

At the café, Berni is yawning and telling Evan that Jude kept her up all night. Evan is kind of like, “Oh, her? Is she still around?,” although he should remember it could be worse: Berni could be telling him all about how Briain kept her up all night. I’m just saying. Evan helpfully points out that there’ll probably be a spot for Jude in a nursing home soon, or maybe a cemetery, and just then Briain struts in and announces to no one in particular that Jude was asking after Evan all morning. Berni suggests that perhaps he could go visit her, but he stammers that between football and Máire (?) he’s flat out right now, as evidenced by the fact that he has been sitting in the café staring at a piece of dust for the past three hours. This is what happens when you grow up with Bobbi Lee as one of the adult role models in your life. Briain volunteers that maybe he could look after Jude tonight instead, so Evan rattles off a list of reasons he can’t, including the plague of locusts Irial the TG4 weather dude has forecast for this evening, the season premiere of Peppa Pig, and an erection lasting longer than three hours. He then makes a quick exit, leaving Briain fuming and warming up his punching arm.

We cut to a rural road, where Katy pulls up to what seems to be a police traffic stop, and then we quickly return to town for that fight in the street between Evan and Briain I was pre-recapping for you earlier. Briain demands to know why Evan can’t help Berni out for one effing night, especially given that Jude is his grandmother, and Evan snots back that Briain should mind his own business and that the sooner Jude goes into a nursing home, the better. I think we’d all agree with that last part, but I’m not sure how Evan thinks being a total dick is going to expedite that process. There is back-and-forthing, and Briain frowns and hisses a lot, and Evan is a complete smirky shit before eventually storming off, and it seems that wherever he’s been for the past six months, it wasn’t charm school.

Katy has made it to the front of the queue at the traffic stop, and when the Garda, who sadly is not the usual hunky Jason Statham cop we usually see but is at least not Tony, asks her to step out of the car, she thinks about it for a bit and then says she really thinks she’d prefer to stay in the car, thanks. He is having none of her nonsense and orders her to get out, and all I can think is that it’s a shame Dee didn’t think to dissolve some of her mail-order amphetamines in the wine so we could see Katy leap onto the roof of the car, do a highly choreographed rendition of “Proud Mary,” and then fall into a windmill.

At a posh hotel, Bobbi Lee is excitedly telling a cool fuchsia-haired extra that the fortuneteller just predicted a wedding in her future! The extra is very happy for her, and all I can say is that I would have ROCKED it as a fuchsia-haired extra jumping up and down and squealing with Bobbi Lee. Just then Peatsaí and Annette enter and sit down on a velvet settee, which I am pretty sure is a word, and they start discussing whether there should be salmon or beef at the wedding. Of course this causes Bobbi Lee to wee in her leather pants, which look amazing by the way, so she hides behind a poster and eavesdrops in disbelief on more wedding planning. She makes a hilariously disgusted face when Annette and Peatsaí start discussing the honeymoon suite, and when they stroll off arm in arm, she climbs out from behind the poster and smiles triumphantly.

At the pub, a grumpily despondent Briain tells David that he really digs Berni because she’s a happenin’, groovy chick, but he’s not sure he can handle all the associated drama, what with Jude being a burden and Evan being a giant steaming pile. As someone else who has tilled Berni’s fields in the past, David’s expert opinion is that this can’t be easy on her either, especially since Evan has been a douche for decades now. I’m paraphrasing. He adds unhelpfully that no relationship is easy. For example, Gráinne is a witch or something and also keeps buying imaginary land on the internet. He concludes that if Briain and Berni are meant to be together, it will all work out, and if not, he can blow everything up by sleeping with Bobbi Lee or Pádraig or something.

Laoise arrives home accompanied by Máire, who is banging on about how she thinks she should still be in the hospital what with her being in a coma and decapitated and everything. Laoise, who seems exactly like she always does, by which I mean cranky and disagreeable, says she’s fine, and that she just needs Máire to stop fussing over her, but Máire’s verdict is that if Laoise doesn’t snap out of her coma and iron Micheál’s shirts like a good girl, he’ll break up with her when he comes home. When Máire goes on Mastermind, her specialist subject will be “mixed messages.”

Elsewhere, Dee is sitting on the couch smirking while her dad tells Katy over the phone that he’s on his way to pick her up at the police station and that everything will be fine. He’s all sweetness and fatherly love until he puts down the phone, at which point he starts ranting that he can’t believe Katy is so stupid, and Dee replies hilariously, “She shouldn’t have had that wine at all!” Oh my God, this is so delicious I can’t even stand it. Then she’s all like, “Thank God she didn’t have Jay with her, the irresponsible little wagon!”, to which John Joe agrees. Snerk. She offers to go pick up Jay from the crÀeche, which after all these years has still not managed to get its character encoding right, and adds that she’ll take care of everything while John Joe goes to pick up that strumpety little madam from the jail, so he declares that Dee is a good girl and he can always count on her.

Bobbi Lee arrives at the pub in her usual cloud of chaos, informing Mo and Colm that the fortuneteller says there’s a wedding in her future, but even more exciting, Annette and Peatsaí are totally doing it and they are going to get married. For you Simpsons fans, it’s very, “Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me!” I always thought David was Ros na Rún’s Ralph Wiggum, but I suppose he and Bobbi Lee can take turns. Mo and Colm are skeptical, having met Peatsaí, Annette, and Bobbi Lee, but she insists she saw it with her own eyes, adding that she saw them planning the menu and discussing their headboard-rattling tour of the honeymoon suite.

Micheál arrives home from Amerikay and is surprised to find Laoise up and walking around since Máire had told him she had been reduced to a submolecular paste. Máire’s explanation is that she has prayed Laoise back to life, and then there’s some more nonsense along those lines we will skip over. I guess Réailtín has gone back to school, or is in the other room having her forehead pierced with a ballpoint pen.

Back at the pub, Peatsaí strolls through and is vague to Mo and Colm about why he’s in such a good mood, which makes them wonder if Bobbi Lee is right after all. The default answer to this is always “no,” especially in case like this where it’s obvious to all of us what’s actually going on, but it will probably be good for a few laughs, so I will allow it.

Celebrity drunk driver Katy has arrived home and is fuming about all the places she won’t be able to drive, such as to pick Jay up at the crÀeche (which I was pretty sure was down the block, but OK), to buy barrels of lard at the cash and carry, and to steal bottles of piri-piri sauce from Nando’s and claim it is homemade. Dee is in full angelic mode, having ascended two-thirds of the way to heaven, and says they’ll all pitch in to help her out in her hour of wretched, alcoholic need. John Joe and O’Shea arrive, and Katy snits to the superintendent, “There you are! I was looking for you at the station,” to which Imelda replies drily, “I heard that you were.” OK, so now we know Katy was raising holy hell down at the station, slurring Imelda’s name and screaming the lyrics to “You Oughta Know” into Tony’s walkie-talkie. Katy insists that she only had a glass or two and then starts whining that Imelda needs to make all this go away. The superintendent grimly ignores her, at which point Katy commands John Joe to order his woman to do something. Well, there’s no way this is going to go badly. Katy continues shrieking and finally John Joe shouts at her to knock it off and take some responsibility because it was her own stupidity that caused all this. Katy looks sad, and Dee smirks silently in the corner, and I know some of you are tired of this gaslighting storyline, but I think it’s the BEST THING EVER.