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Great LezBritain: “Lip Service” Recap – Season 2, Episode 3

So it was not delusion, it was a real happening. Cat has definitely snuffed it. The evidence is laid bare as we watch last week’s recap before the episode begins. Oh my, how will the lesbi-gang and little Ed cope? Get your lesbian vest on, tousle your hair, pour a Whiskey and let’s dive in.

Sarah: Will you miss Cat?

Lee: I will miss Laura Fraser‘s face, but honestly, I’m more into seeing what develops without her.

Tess has been greeted in the kitchen by Sadie and Lexy’s mountain of unwashed dishes and old food remnants. Lexy walks in and can see that Tess looks somewhat frazzled and apologises for her mess, but really Tess is only annoyed by Sadie’s slatternly ways, due to her secret Lexy crush.

Tess tells her that she has tried, but failed every trick in the book to catch 40 winks. Lexy offers to smuggle her some morphine from the hospital — as a little joke — but this makes Tess look so hopeful that instead Lexy gives her a fragrant cuddle of comfort, much to Tess’s obvious delight.

Sadie saunters in wearing a red kimono, a lit fag draping out of her mouth. When Tess reminds her there is no smoking in the communal areas, she gives a genuine apology and then chucks the fag into a teacup.  She saunters to the fridge and takes one of Tess’s yoghurts from the fridge: the Artful Dodgeress is shameless in her half-inching of other people’s things. Her behaviour is getting on Tess’ wick and she points out that it’s her yoghurt with a hint of hysteria to her tone that makes both Lexy and Sadie raise an eyebrow. Sadie leaves to continue nursing Frankie with fags and natural yoghurt.

Lee: This is not about yoghurt you know that?

Sarah: It’s never about yoghurt, it’s never about tea.

Lee: It’s always about affairs of the heart and dead friends.

All of the lesbians at home watch Tess watch Lexy’s bottom as she moves around the kitchen. Sadie returns to get some spoons for Tess’ yoghurt and gets an eyeful of Tess getting an eyeful. She smiles a knowing Artful Dodgeress smile. She returns to the boudoir and wakes up Frankie with Tess’ yoghurt and spoons and the astute and delicately put observation that “Tess so needs to rub one out over Lexy.” Frankie lies amidst empty beer bottles, pictures peeling from the wall and dirty underwear.  It’s a bed called grief that Tracey Emin would win awards for.

Sadie continues with her sticky fingered ways, rummaging around for a pair of Frankie’s knickers to borrow. She has an interview with the magazine that she and Frankie took the photos for on the day of Cat’s birth/death day, so must be as clean as a whistle.

She wrote the article to accompany the photos, after Frankie recommended her writing to the magazine. Of course, in this case, the Frankie doing the recommending looked a lot like Sadie pretending to be Frankie.  Is there no end to the brilliant deceptive genius that is the Artful Dodgeress?

Frankie has a face like thunder, cares little for anything and just wants to smoke.

Frankie’s phone goes and she asks Sadie to answer it.

Sadie: Hello, Moody Cow Photography?

Sadie tells Frankie that it’s her mum calling. Frankie’s heart pelts and she leaps out of bed like Jiminy Cricket to hold the conversation in private, away from Sadie rummaging through her pants. Their discussion is brief but they have arranged to meet soon.

Tess hears Frankie on the phone and asks if she wants go to visit Cat’s grave with her or have lunch with her and Ed. Frankie does not want to get involved in either of those activities. Clearly she is not yet ready to take on that horrific reality just yet. Sadie comes to join them, eating Tess’ yogurt. Frankie heads to the shower clearly feeling they are both irritants she doesn’t want to be around.

Lee: Oh I know how sad Frankie is, but it’s making me sad that there’s not more togetherness with her and Tess.

Sarah: I think Tess reminds her of Cat and she can’t get her head round it all yet.

DS Sam Murray jogs along the Clyde with her dad. He suggests that they later go to the driving range; we suggest this is very, very lesbian. However Sam cannot, she has a counseling session that work is making her attend. Her dad reminisces over his days in the force, where you were basically treated like shit and indeed lucky to get your teeth fixed if you got them knocked out of your head whilst on duty, fighting the good fight. His tough Northern cookie attitude doesn’t hide his warm centre and the love he holds towards his daughter.

They stop for a break, and would you Adam and Eve it, a very flushed and sweaty Lexy appears, also jogging, along the Clyde at that very moment: a queer coincidence indeed. She gingerly approaches, hoping that Sam’s emotional state is a better one, but Sam’s dad’s presence makes Sam unable to be candid or speak about Cat in any context.

Daddy Murray: So how do you two know each other then?

Sam: Just from running.

Lexy: Yeah, just from running.

Both parties jog off as it’s all a bit unnatural and Daddy Murray has blatantly looked at Lexy’s bosoms, which makes us take against him somewhat, while equally understanding his predicament. It’s very confusing being a lesbian feminist sometimes. But then we laugh at him again when he says:

Daddy Murray: Nice girl. One of your lot?

When Sam arrives home, her mum is cleaning her and Cat’s bedroom. Sam goes a bit radio rental because she doesn’t want anything touched and also that f–king piece of dead tree has been moved and is now laying for all and sundry to take judgment of. Sam is not yet ready to take the steps of cleanliness or tree analysis. Her poor mum means well and says she wishes she could have met Cat.

Lee: Even in their grief Frankie and Sam are such opposites. Frankie is basically just being publicly sick in the street and Sam’s choking in a back alley.

Sarah: Darling, that was a delightful analogy.

Lexy is with gay stud in the hospital canteen telling him how good Sam looks in lycra. His ruthless attitude about trying to shag the recently widowed hot cop continues. Lexy tells him off and says that she’s getting her kicks elsewhere, and in fact has a f–k buddy situation with a colleague at work. She gives a little wave to a blonde across the room.  

As they leave the canteen, Lexy’s phone rings. She looks disconcerted and doesn’t answer it.

Sarah: That’s the second time that’s happened so now it has piqued my interest.

Lee: It might be Cat. Giving her blessing.

Frankie is walking the streets and passes a flower stall and asks which flowers are the norm to purchase for one’s mother. This little scene is just to reinforce that Frankie is a little orphan girl who has never even bought a mother’s day bouquet before, but now because she wants her mum to love her, she’s buying the perfect bunch.

Sadie is flying by the seat of her pants in her interview to be a magazine writer with a very attractive editor lady who is really very attractive. She is attractive in the same vein that all Scottish TV character brunettes are attractive. See: Anna, This Life and G Wing Governor Helen Stewart for more of the same.

The attractive editor asks which previous publications Sadie has written for and without any of the subtlety that Verbal from The Usual Suspects graced us with, Sadie reads off words that are printed boldly next to her head. The interviewee reels off the rest of her sentence knowing what game the not so Artful Dodgeress is trying to pull. 

Sadie: All right look, I am, was an Estate Agent so that’s why I know what I’m talking about. The hotel was shit. I need the money so you going to use it or not?

Interviewer: It needs more subbing than what it’s worth.

Sadie: Well why get me in then?

Interview: You’ve got a decent take and I like to check out new talent.

Oh this flirtation is a red rag to a bull and Sadie’s old eye glint increases to the strength of the Northern Lights and there is more than a little suggestion that she has a plan to outfox this foxy lady.

Unfortunately much of the attractiveness of the editor is subdued by the reveal of a truly hideous jacket as she stands up to wave Sadie off.

Lee: Boak.

Sarah: That’s a wardrobe malfunction if ever I witnessed one.

Frankie sits alone in a plush looking restaurant, and we’re given a montage of close-ups of her sad, but lovely face as she waits. The Lip Service camera does have a small love affair with Frankie’s face.  

Ed and Tess meet for lunch, eating sandwiches on some lovely steps in Glasgow’s West End while sharing stories about Cat. Ed can’t really eat and his little face is pinched with the pain of dealing with his mum and the rest of the family’s constant  glowing reports on Cat’s outstanding character. He pleads with Tess to tell him some negative tales. Tess looks awkward for she knows an absolute corker, but instead comes up with a pathetic admission.

Tess: She didn’t have a TV license at Uni.

Ed: Maybe she was perfect after all.

He tells her that he’s meeting his agent tomorrow to talk over the sequel to his book but hasn’t written anything because writing is being alone and being alone makes him wish for his sister. This makes us well up a little. Ed shakes off his doom and gloom and asks after Tess’ activities, namely rehearsals. She admits to not returning yet. Ed agrees to attend a drinks session with her fellow cast members to ease her back into the throes of it all if she comes for drinks with him and Sam tomorrow eve. They agree. They then agree to have ice cream instead of shots o clock. We think they’re misguided in this choice but we are not here to judge the recently bereaved.

Frankie is still alone drinking what may well be her eighth cup of tea when mother dearest comes bounding in with shopping bags and a fleeting apology about her tardy time keeping.

Frankie is very contrite about her drunken ways on the doorstep of her mother’s home and hands her the flowers. Her mum looks at them with a very slight stirring of pity and tells her that she is sorry that Cat is no more.

Frankie: I would have really liked you to meet her. If things had worked out that way.

Frankie’s Mum: I would have liked that.

Frankie’s face shines from the hand that her mother seems to extend out to her. However, her mother then tells her that her that she has come along way since the days of Uncle Fester and Frankie and that her husband could not cope with the knowledge of her. Although Frankie has always been a part of her, she cannot get involved in Frankie’s life.

At this last line, the camera focuses on Frankie’s disbelief closing in on her face as yet another part of her life crumbles around her.

Frankie: So that’s it then?

Some tea is brought over and that’s awkward.

Frankie’s Mum: I’m sorry Frankie, I —

Frankie: You what? You love me? You take it back?

Frankie gets up to leave, the hardness repainted on, and the pain blatant. Before she leaves, her mum pulls out an envelope of dough, maybe to try and relieve her own guilt or maybe to genuinely help her struggling daughter. We just don’t know. The camera closes in on Frankie’s face again and she leans over and whips away her carefully picked flowers, leaving the grubby bad mummy money on the table.

Lee: Seriously, what more shit can they chuck at poor Frankie?

Sarah: She could be run over in the street while reading a text?

DS Murray is in her counseling session picking the fluff from her trousers as opposed to delving into the core of her feelings. She challenges why this is activity is a necessary step to getting her back to the front line of law and order.

Sam: I can see the point in it, if a suspect dies in custody or on an armed unit you have to take someone out, but a death in our personal lives?

Counselor: Why a suspect?

Sam: What?

Counselor: You compared losing Cat to a suspect dying in custody or getting shot. Why not a victim of a murder or a RTA?

Oh dear, the inner most feelings may have squeezed out, but she shakes this off as codswallop.

Sam will not allow herself to be unfolded. Her grief must be contained and her emotions realigned, refocused and thrown into getting back to work. She has transferred her pain and wretchedness and deluded herself into thinking that her troubles will be etched away when she is back on duty.

She meets Ryder in the hallway after her counseling session. He is concerned about her and wants to know why she has been elusive to his texts and calls. Sam tells him her parents have been staying, she’s been preoccupied, but she’s fine and just wants to know the latest work happenings.

Ryder: Hey come on, you’ve just lost the woman you love.

Sam: Do you think she loved me back?

Ryder: What’s that supposed to mean?

Sam: It doesn’t matter.

She walks away, the hard shell cracking under the weight of uncertainty. And the weight of a piece of wood.

Frankie takes the flowers she reclaimed from her mother’s rejection to Cat’s grave.

Sarah: I suppose it’s the thought that counts.

She starts to write their initials into the soil. Sam appears from the bushes, startling her out of action by calling her name. Frankie is very uncomfortable, desperately trying to shift away. Sam tells her that she is entitled to stay. The weight of uncertainly however pushes harder on Sam’s fair-mindedness and through tears of devastation and a steely determination to know the truth. She asks the question that has been driving her spare.

Sam: Were you f–king her? 

Lee & Sarah: Oooooh.

Frankie: No — she chose you.

Lee & Sarah: Oooooh.

Frankie turns and walks away. Her expression recognizes that she will never be able to acknowledge the relationship she was having with Cat because to do so would be to rip out Sam’s heart and generally open a rather unpleasant can of worms.

Sam returns home with her parents still there, her dad’s face willing her to mend herself. She makes a jibe about her counselor telling her that she has parental issues and this pleases her father because her girl is laughing and not crying. Sam tells her parents that she no longer needs them as an emotional crutch and they are free to leave. Her mum is concerned by the immediacy but her dad nods in approval because his daughter is moving forward with life and not retreating from it.

Lee: Wasn’t he a policeman too? Well his detective skills are also a bit off-kilter.

Lexy is at a bar with Bea from the hospital, the blonde woman she undertakes weekly fornications with. Lexy is talking about her longings for the hot cop when her phone rings. She assumes it to be another one of the nuisance calls that she has been recently troubled with. She answers with frustration and begins to give the recipient an ear bashing when she realizes it is her grandmother battling with her new mobile.

Discarding the idea of f–king in a Travelodge, they head back to Lexy’s flat under Lexy’s caveat that they must be quiet so as not to appear insensitive to their housemate’s grief stricken state.

Lee: I would have been disappointed if Lexy had been cool with having sex in a Travelodge.

Sarah: How would you feel about a Premiere Inn?

Lee: Still a deal breaker. I’d be dandy with a Novotel.

Frankie has a moment of procrastination glaring into the Clyde. She returns to her bedroom with Sadie lounging on her bed sipping on some juice and gin. Frankie pulls out a few odds and ends and stuffs them into a rucksack with haste and hostility. She tells Sadie she is leaving for New York.

Sadie: Is it your mum?

Frankie: It’s me, all right? There’s nothing here for me anymore.

Sadie is bleeding to tell her to stay because she loves her.

Lee: Oh my god, she does, doesn’t she? She really loves Frankie. I didn’t really know until now.

Sarah: She loves her with all of her shady little heart

This realization seems to hit Frankie at about the same time as it hits us — I mean, maybe we’re just all really slow and everyone else has known this since Sadie was the despondent Pocahontas. But anyway, Frankie cares not if Sadie does or doesn’t because she’s had as much as she can take, she has her rucksack on and she’s made her decision. She leaves and tells Sadie to tell Tess about her sudden flit. Sadie’s eyes dampen and her smile falls away.

Tess returns to find Sadie snorting coke and consuming larger glasses of juice and alcohol. Sadie’s mind is already a minefield of toxins and lonesomeness. She puts a brave face on it and tells Tess about Frankie’s very recent departure and reassures her that she will stay to replace her in the flat. In all honestly the thought of having Sadie in your flat all the time sounds wonderful and also horrific.

Tess rushes out to locate Frankie. Luckily in about 3 blinks of an eye she finds her hailing a cab. Tess’s anger blisters at Frankie and her selfishness for just leaving without any consideration for her or indeed anyone at all. Then Tess brings out an emotional hammer to really knock the truth home.

Tess: You should have never have come back.

Frankie: What because if I hadn’t she’d still be alive?

Tess: That’s not what I meant.

Frankie: Yes it is and you’re right.

Tess: I’m sorry.

They embrace and Frankie tells her that she’s a f–k up, which is a really tiring line, because this is all about more than Frankie just being a f–k up, and by now we’ve seen that there is some depth to Frankie’s pain. She makes Tess promise to keep shtoom about her and Cat’s illicit love affair, tells her she will miss her and jumps into a taxicab.  Tess jolts out tears that are a mark of her being left alone without yet another best friend.

Lee: I am having a lot of emotions about what has just happened. I really wanted to see Frankie deal with her shit, and be a good friend, and grow and not just be reduced to a “f–k up.”

Sarah: Maybe she will be back and she can do all of those things.

Lee: I hope so because I also wanted to see her in that cowgirl outfit again.

Sadie rocks up to a gay club, dressed to impress and eager to undress. She spills her eyes round the room until she spies a potential target. She ambles over to an Italian tourist who is unsuccessfully trying to order Buckfast or some other Scottish drink from bemused bar staff. Sadie helps out and helps herself by ordering double vodkas for them both. They flirt and moments later they seem to be home and Sadie is having her wicked way with her Italian tourist as she douses her in condiments and takes her from behind as the girl wails the Nessun Dorma with some gusto.

Sarah: Are we to miss out mentioning how horrendous the Italian girl’s accent and acting was?

Lee: I can’t even bear to think about it.

Lexy and Bea are also being rather cozy upstairs. We can see why Lexy likes the benefits of this particular friend and we can also see that Lexy is most definitely going to be a Lip Service favourite. They flip on the radio to drown out the Italian tourist’s cries of exhalations.

Poor Tess twists and turns in her own bed with her pillow over her head trying to drown out the noises of her new horny flatmates.

The morning after the night before, Tess stands in the kitchen not knowing where to turn as various foods debris cover every object visible to the naked eye.

Bea walks in wearing a towel and is amused by the remnants of last night’s food party. She remarks on the boob prints that have been neatly carved in jam on the sideboard. Tess assumes that it was Bea that was getting sticky with the jam and is about to flip her lid until Lexy arrives and she realizes that Bea was Lexy’s tango partner, not Sadie’s. This makes Tess want to flip her lid in a different way.

Sadie walks past looking like an extra in a Tim Burton film. This, Lexy bedding another girl, Frankie leaving, the death of Cat and sleep deprivation is all too much for Tess to take in and she spits out her frustrations to them all.

Tess: (pointing at the sex mess) This was supposed to be my breakfast; I was supposed to go back to work today like you told me to. I couldn’t sleep because I didn’t get the memo about the house shagathon and now this doesn’t work (holds up a radio covered in cream).

The Artful Dodgeress is clearly fighting her hangover and trying to offer help as last night’s mascara spills from her eyes.

Sam is back with in her counseling session. She tells her counselor that any doubts she had over Cat are now gone with the wind. She trusts that Cat loved her and she is going to let it rest.

Back at the hospital Lexy is examining a patient’s broken leg when Gay Stud walks in and feigns the role of a specialist. He begins writing his phone digits with an invisible marker only visible by X-Ray on the patient’s leg so that his eye candy can see them.

Lexy pulls him away and tells him that his actions are morally questionable and he barters her back by telling her that impure thoughts towards the grief-stricken hot cop are not ideal.

Tess and Ed are in the pub waiting for Sam when Tess tells Ed about Frankie’s recent ups to the Big Apple. She also tells Ed that she thinks it is best not to tell DS Murray because of the pair’s history. Ed thinks this will not do and Tess is clearly awkward about his refusal to lie. Sam arrives and they instantly fill her in on Sadie and Lexy’s recent sexcapades. Naturally this leads to chatting about Frankie and her regular misdemeanors.

Ed: Frankie’s gone back to the States.

Sam: When did this happen?

Ed: Last night?

Tess: Yeah, I think she got a job over there or something.

Sam looks disturbed by this news, because despite what she told her counselor, she feels uneasy about the Cat/Frankie situation.  Tess has a face that epitomizes awkwardness. She makes a feeble excuse about feeling a little queasy and leaves because she is finding it difficult to keep the motivation for Frankie’s real departure buttoned up.

The Artful Dodgeress is unrecognizable in a pinny and rubber gloves, sprucing the kitchen to its former glory. She tells Lexy who is sitting in very, very questionable knee length army shorts that she does not know if Frankie will return again. She has however come up with a solution to her monetary woes by vowing to sell the belongings that Frankie left behind.

Sarah: Not sure that a drawer full of second hand dildos is going to get her the readies.

Tess returns home, confused that Sadie and Lexy have been replaced by Kim and Aggie. The Artful Dodgeress compliments her namesake by handing Tess a new radio, which still has the security tag on it. Tess concedes that her reaction may have been an irrational one but they apologise and they all sit in merriment with wine.

Tess can’t help but ask Lexy about her sexy time. Lexy explains that Bea has an open relationship with her girlfriend who travels a lot, but that if Lexy met someone that took her fancy, then the f–k buddiness would come to an end

Sadie: Well now that we’re all friends, if someone wants to lend me a tenner, I’ll get the dinner in — keep your wig on; I’ve got a plan to pay it back.

Lee: I loved this scene. I want more of these little friendship scenes.

Sarah: Sadie is amazing and Lexy is such a good new egg.

Back at Sam’s quarters, she strips her bed but gets distracted by finding some of Cat’s clothes and clings herself to the smell that she misses so much. She forces herself away but this brings her to her knees and she begins to finds it difficult to breathe, a minor panic attack is induced.

Tess and fellow cast members are doing the old trust trick of facing forward and falling back into one another’s arm, in the hope that they are indeed there and they don’t break their back. Of course Tess is falling into Nora’s arms. Nora does her very best to insinuate Tess is a heifer lump by faux-struggling to catch her.

Lexy and Gay Stud are in the canteen once more. His plan to seduce the target of his affections has not been successful and Lexy declares that she is out of the game, pledging only to befriend and not to bed DS Murray.

Tess and her castmates are playing a “get to know your character” game. She is quizzed furiously and she must respond as her character Sonia. Nora probes her about her guiltiest secret, which finally breaks Tess because her state of mind is warped by feelings of guilt and loss. She runs off in tears and Hipflask explains about Tess’ bereavement before going to comfort her. Hipflask encourages Tess to open up to him and she tells him that she questions whether her actions are the cause of Cat’s demise. Hipflask tells her that this is silly and we agree because we’ve seen The Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher.

Hipflask goes back to nursing his loathing of Thomas Delaware, the fella his wife left him for, by pulling out a glowing newspaper article about him. He tells Tess to get very drunk with him so they can enact pointless acts of reprisal at him. She laughs through her tears.

Sexy Lexy is running and low and behold she spots her DS’s back, limbering up against some railings.

Lee: At this point, I must tell you that there are often more than two joggers at any time in Glasgow.

Lexy consciously squashes her initial enthusiasm by holding onto the strength to keep her feelings in check and tries to bypass the lady that tickles her fancy unnoticed. But Sam spots her and after some polite chitchat suggests they run together. Lexy jogs with her face a picture of a smitten kitten. 

The Artful Dodgeress is waiting for the editor lady with the nice shoes and shit jacket outside her work. Sadie tells her she wishes to discuss another article over an alcoholic beverage.

Lauren: What if I’m busy?

Sadie: Then you would be missing out.

Sadie slowly saunters away and Lauren runs her eyes down Sadie’s leather-clad body.

Ed joins Tess and her acting oddballs at the boozer. Tess introduces him; nobody gives a jot apart from Hipflask because he is a decent one, and the rest are sociopathic narcissists. That is until Tess tells Hipflask that Ed has recently landed a film deal and Nora spins around like a spinning top that has just been flicked.

Lauren and Sadie drink cocktails. Sadie admits she is not ladled with article ideas she just wishes to flirt quite outrageously with Lauren. Lauren rebukes the advances. She tells her that she’s married but Sadie scoffs. Lauren’s eyes linger at our Artful Dodgeress far too long and longingly for someone who declares they are so committed.

Sarah: I’m not taken at all by all these loose lesbians.

Lee: I know, but it’s a TV show. I don’t believe that all lawyers do drugs because of This Life.

Sarah: I do.

Lauren’s phone rings and she lies about her happenings because she has fallen for the Artful Dodgeress’ cockney tongue.

Lexy and Sam walk together. It is doubtful how much effort was put into this jog, as neither looks particularly sweaty. They talk about Frankie’s disappearing act, Lexy remarking on her ignorance as to the motivation. Sam feigns a genuine care but is clearly uncomfortable and shifts herself away. Lexy is left alone craving more on the bridge.

Nora has taken little Ed under her wing and is playing another part, the perfect ear, shoulder and breast for Ed to take claim to.

Ed approaches Tess.

Ed: I know you think she is annoying but I think she is all right but I think she is up for it, so? Bye.

Lee: Ha ha, I love Ed for this one selfish act of his life.

Tess is left gobsmacked with Hipflask and his Thomas Delaware preoccupations. He leads her to the streets, where they deface several posters by scrawling words like “prick” and adding penises on Thomas Delaware’s chin

Meanwhile Sadie and Lauren return to Lauren’s office for a bit of naked copywriting.

Lauren: This is a one-time thing.

Sarah: I suspect it is not.

Meanwhile, DS Murray is still on the streets in her jogging gear and she suffers another bout of breathing problems and falls to her knees as the episode ends.

Sarah: Heather’s acting has been rather good throughout this episode: very understated coupled with very intense.

Lee: Agreed. This was a brilliant episode overall apart from the Italian and Frankie’s departure.

Sarah: But I like the new flatmate dynamics. I suspect  more thrills and spills will ensue.

Lee: Also, I feel bad about this, but I didn’t miss Cat at all.

Sarah: I did not either. This was in part because I was distracted by the shagathon.

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