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“Last Tango in Halifax” (Ep. 3): And it burned, burned, burned

The third episode of Last Tango in Halifax starts with a bang, with our so-put-together Caroline almost veering her family into the abyss as she drives erratically down a ridiculously gorgeous country road, screaming, “I’m having a nervous bloody breakdown!”

Clearly, I am in love with this episode already!

And it only gets better from here: there are fights, tears, sex, embers of lesbian hope, ghosts and haunted houses, and arson all still to come, resulting in the best episode yet. I know we’ve only recapped three episodes so far, but still, it’s the best one yet! Caroline’s in such a frenzied state due to the debacle where we left off last episode, when it was revealed that her husband, John, let his mistress Judith into their house. Younger Loyal-to-my-Dad Son is giving her a hard time in the car, asking how she could’ve just left him there at Gillian’s house, when Caroline’s bloody breakdown showed its fiery face. Some deep breaths and a hug from both of her sons leaves her feeling slightly more calmed, and more determined to give John the boot for good. Thank heavens. Speaking of the bastard, he’s let himself into Gillian’s house, as there’s nothing else he really could have done in his abandoned situation. He’s also helped himself to a healthy portion of Gillian’s red wine, because he’s a selfish alcoholic. Once Gillian returns home from picking up her son Raff from the police station, who’s been involved in some sort of kerfuffle, John begins to spill all of his woes to her. And here Gillian does me wrong for the first time – OK, well I suppose for the second time; the first being her sleeping with a dude – as she tells him that if he really, truly hasn’t done anything too wrong, he should stand up for himself. Thus begins a semi-friendship between John and Gillian, which I have many thoughts about, while I’ll get to in a bit.

When Alan gives John’s drunk ass a ride home early the next morning, John takes this “standing up for myself” advice to mean, “I should come shouting into the house as if I’ve just won the lottery and start making breakfast for my family while I play brassy bandstand music at top volume because life is jolly and I have done nothing wrong!” When Caroline finally barges into the room in her jammies to shut off the music he’s blaring so considerately, and asks him what the hell he’s doing, he even says, “Half of this house is mine. I didn’t do anything wrong. William exaggerated. Get over it!” What a stellar communication strategy for forgiveness! Spot on, sir!

In a case of opposites, Alan has simultaneously shown up at Celia’s door with a bouquet of flowers at 8AM. These two! They’re enjoying breakfast together, discussing their thoughts about God, as you do over breakfast, when they start hearing the ruckus from Caroline and John’s row next door. As they overhear all the shouts, they inexplicably start giggling uncontrollably to each other, although Celia does take slight pause when she hears John shout that the next time Celia slaps him, he’ll slap her back, harder. Threatening violence on your elderly mother-in-law is apparently Step 2 in John’s Philosophy For Reconciling With Your Estranged Wife. Like I said, spot on! And while Celia and Alan’s giggle fest does help ease the tension, when Caroline says pathetically, desperately, and so brokenly, “I don’t want you here!” and covers her eyes to cry while John continues to hulk and shout about like the Manly Man Of This House he is suddenly parading as, it really does suddenly become very un-funny. As John continues to make breakfast for their sons like a domestic wizard made of oblivious testosterone, Caroline slams herself into an empty room in their sprawling house, rubbing her face, running her hands through her sleepy hair, rocking slightly back and forth, and it is the first time, even more so than the meltdown in the car, when we begin to see Caroline truly unravel. And in the midst of her pain, she has also never seemed so beautiful.

Her anxiety then switches oh so smoothly right into Gillian’s anxiety across town, whose son hasn’t been talking to her since he returned from the police station. As she arrives at the grocery store where she works for a shift, she runs into the dude who she slept with last time, Paul, who it becomes clear is the one who her son kerfuffled with. You would kerfuffle, too, if a cocky dude such as Paul was bragging about banging your mom, as he reveals to Gillian that he did. Oh, Gillian. Oh, oh, Gillian. She takes deep breaths in the break room of the store, staring at the contacts list on her phone, alternatively yearning to call her son or her dad. In the end, she doesn’t call anyone, because John calls her. Yeah, John. Oh, John. John is feeling quite good about himself at this point, what with the triumph of making breakfast and threatening his wife and such – somebody bring this guy a medal! – and he shares his accomplishments with Gillian over the phone, followed by a good smoke, a stiff drink, and again, ridiculous blaring orchestral music, all while he stretches his legs out on the back lawn. What a silly human being this one is.

As he does this, though, Caroline does what we would all do – she calls the girl she likes. Kate is out shopping, walking down the street with her hair down, looking lovely during this conversation, and while it’s clear that she’s still stinging from the whole Caroline-dumping-her-ass thing, she softens immediately once she learns that Caroline is in fact calling her to admit that she was right all along, and that yes, she really shouldn’t be spending her life with that bro who’s smoking and drinking on the lawn. Caroline also casually mentions that her mother is getting married; Kate says, “That’s sweet!” And in one of the best moments of the whole episode, this continued sentimentality over her mother’s sudden romance is too much for Caroline’s calloused soul. Snapping momentarily out of her emotional, messy state, she holds the phone to her chest so she can roll her eyes towards the heavens.

When she brings the phone back to her ear, Kate offers to come over. Obviously. They don’t get to say proper goodbyes, however, because Caroline has just noticed the smoking, drinking John on the lawn, and has tossed the phone away in order to properly march out there and, with both hands free, throw a bucket of water on top of his smug face. As the ‘rents continue to shout on the lawn, Angry Curly Haired Son Whom I Love slams the window of his room closed and begins to blare Florence + the Machine to drown out the sound of their voices. “Strangeness and Charm,” to be exact, one of the bonus tracks off the deluxe edition of Ceremonials. Oh, this Florence-listening boy is definitely gay.

I have my books and my poetry to protect me.

Gillian, meanwhile, is continuing to have a right shit day herself. When she returns home from work, she discovers Raff has run away to the detested uncle’s house. When she calls the uncle, he says, “Yep, he’s here with me. He can live here if he wants. Guess he found out what a bitch you are!” Classy one, this unc. Not wanting to bother her dad, or perhaps not wanting to tell him why Raff is so mad at her, and not knowing what else to do, she ends up calling John. At this point, John’s changed into some dry clothes and is still lounging around the house, as Kate and Caroline talk outside. He sits up on the couch when Gillian says, “You know that affair you had with Judith? Well, I’ve done something stupid, too.”

Herein, though, lie the differences between Gillian and John. Her “affair” isn’t perfect, as this young lad she slept with is engaged to another woman. It’s also unclear when exactly their relationship, if you could call it a relationship, started. But in any case, it seems that Gillian’s husband has been dead for at least a decent amount of time, and at this point, she should presumably have the ability to do what she wants. While her relationship with this guy is clearly upsetting to Raff, who’s still dealing with learning that his father killed himself, she is still by far a less offensive party than John, who openly cheated with another woman while his wife was still alive and well. But besides analyzing the varying degrees of their offenses, the most striking and important factor here is how they deal with them. While John still doesn’t seem that truly repentant, or understanding of why the way he’s currently acting is wrong, Gillian is crushed. Her love for Raff, and the fact that he doesn’t trust her, is ripping her apart.

Outside in the garden, another honest, but much more lovely conversation is ensuing between Caroline and Kate. Everything about this scene is so wonderful that it makes me jump fully headlong into believing in this partnership, and it will be hard for me to describe it accurately without simply flailing. But let’s try.

Kate is giving advice about when she went through her own divorce from her now ex-husband; Caroline seems distracted and responds somewhat flippantly. Feeling brushed off once again, when she actually has useful, sympathetic things to say, Kate stands up for herself. There are a million and one things you don’t know about me, she says to Caroline, because you never ask. Yet you just take advantage of the assumption that I will always be interested in you. Caroline says, you offered to come over! Kate says, yes, but you called me. Caroline replies that she’s sorry she did. To which Kate suddenly softens.

“Don’t say that. I just want you to understand the effect…you have…on me. If you ring me I’ll come around, even though I know you’re not really interested in me.” (Oh, Kate.)

Caroline sighs. And I now must transcribe her entire following monologue, because it reveals so much of who Caroline is, and it is acted so absolutely brilliantly by Sarah Lancashire, that I don’t know if I breathed throughout the entire thing.

“I’m not…not interested…in you. I’m…I don’t know what I am. You’re right. I’ve never asked you anything about you. And it’s not because I don’t…it’s because I’m selfish, and hopeless. And you’ve been a really good friend. And I don’t know how to be a good friend, to anyone. My parents never got on. I grew up in a house on my own with these people who never spoke to each other unless they had to. And I thought that was normal.

And now she’s met this bloke, this Alan, and he’s a sweet man. And he thinks the world of her, and she thinks of the world of him. And she’s so different. And I can’t help wondering, if she’d been in love with my dad, and he’d been in love with her, how different things would’ve been. I don’t know what normal relationships are like. I see them, but I don’t know how to do them. So I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you, or taken you for granted. I will endeavor not to do that in the future. Because I do value your friendship. And I’m sorry if I’ve never said that, or made that clear, or done what normal people do to express these things. So I’m sorry.”

And you want her to be loved, and you want Kate to love her, and you want her to love Kate back. And as they continue to sip tea, next to each other on that bench, you begin to believe it might really happen.

Caroline, I’m yours.

The next morning, this sweet show about two old people falling in love takes a sudden, violent twist when Gillian discovers a strange car in front of her house, and opens its door to find this.

It’s Paul, the guy she slept with, the guy Raff is so mad about, although it seems the blokes that did this to him this time were related to the gal he was supposed to be marry. Gillian brings him into her house; he says that they told him they’d throw petrol on him and light a match. And he believes them. And he cries like a baby, because who wouldn’t? And the quiet truth of Last Tango in Halifax starts to really reveal itself, as a show about people not being what you expect them to be. The elderly widows who society ignores and belittles, finding richer love and joy than anyone else around them; even having great sex, apparently, too! (That happens this episode, as well.) The high strung, accomplished head teacher of a high class school, discovering she’s a lesbian. The slimy guy who makes crude jokes and objectifies women, being really nothing but scared and small inside, and the brunt of more small town cruelty than anyone ever deserves.

As Gillian takes Paul to the hospital, we merge to an utterly gorgeous scene at Caroline’s school. Sunlight makes the dust in the air glitter, soothing plucks of music overlaying the scene as Angsty Florence Loving Son takes an exam amongst his classmates. Kate is watching over them; Caroline comes in to relieve her; she and Angsty Son catch each other’s eye and share a small smile as the sun flares in the camera lens and continues to seep into the deep, privileged, history-etched wood of these types of schools; there’s a feeling of utter peace about everything. And then the boy sitting in front of Angsty Son flashes this at him.

The only people having a good time this episode are, unsurprisingly, Alan and Celia, who in addition to making love, are scouting out wedding locations. After a trip to a church which is deemed absolutely unsuccessful, they both mention an old building they used to love, a hotel or a museum or something or other, and head out to see if it’s still around. When they arrive, it has the setup of every creepy haunted house story ever made: ominous music, thunder and lightning outside, an open door and lights on but absolutely no one around. As they wander around, Alan mentions that someone he knew saw a ghost here once. And I would normally be real scared at this point because I am the biggest scaredy cat in the world, but it’s Alan and Celia! Nothing bad could ever happen to Alan and Celia!

So they head in the direction of the room where the ghost lives, because that is a great idea, but I still feel fine about everything until they get to the room and there are CREEPY DOLLS EVERYWHERE AND NO. NO. RUN AWAY, ALAN AND CELIA! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THIS PLACE! YOU SEE CREEPY DOLLS AND YOU RUN!

WHY DID I TAKE THIS SCREENCAP?! NO. NO. WHY.

So then OBVIOUSLY the lights cut out, and they hear the door slam shut downstairs, and they run to it but it’s a massive, gothic, black steel door that won’t budge and OF COURSE they don’t have any service for their phones and they’re stuck in this creepy haunted hotel for the night I guess and what is even happening?

To end this episode off, we see Gillian and Paul sitting quietly in her living room watching the rain, Gillian presumably contemplating whether her son will ever move back in with her, when we hear glass break and a sudden explosion. Gillian runs outside to see that someone has set her Land Rover on fire. SOMEONE HAS TORCHED THE LESBIANMOBILE. THIS IS NOT OK. NOT. OK.

SAME.

Basically: there is a lot going on in Halifax this week, you guys. Holy shit.

To help calm my nerves a little, here’s the Pretty Landscape Shot o’ the Week:

That’s better. A little. I cannot wait until next episode. Just tell me the oldies are safe from the dolls and also some lesbian kissing would be nice. OK? Good. Good. Swell. Thanks. Love, Jill.

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