Archive

“Last Tango in Halifax” recap (Ep. 5): Magnificent

In the second-to-last episode of the first season of Last Tango in Halifax, the writers called up the Lesbian Gods and asked them for suggestions on the perfect way to start a television episode. The gods said, “Take two hot ladies, shove them up against a door, and have them make out and feel each other up, FIRST THING.” Last Tango in Halifax said, “OK!”

We left off last time with everyone recovering after their worlds turned a little topsy turvy when Celia and Alan went missing for a night. Now, Caroline is returning to work after the hectic morning. She calls Kate on the phone as she pulls her car up to the building; asks her to come to her office right away. As Caroline walks down the hall, another employee asks how her mother is, and how she herself is doing. Caroline explains that they all had a bit of a fright. “But I’m feeling – something else, now. Exhilarated,” she says, her dreamy eyes drifting into the distance, her face aglow, as she lets Kate into her office. “Hm. Probably shock,” the woman comments, and leaves to fetch Caroline some tea.

Inside Caroline’s office, Kate asks, “What?” a bit peevishly, and we can’t really blame her, after the ups and downs of Caroline’s mixed messages. But Caroline is over mixed messages today. Today is a new day! A day of exhilaration and freedom! A day to grab Kate and do this! She tugs Kate’s silk shirt out from its tucked-in prison to raise her hand underneath it. And finally, when they pull away, a flushed Kate asks if Caroline would like to come to hers after work, to which Caroline replies, without even the hint of hesitation, without a smidgen of doubt, “YEP.” Caroline is on fire right now; she is incandescent! She is sure and alive and full of light! She also tells Kate that she’s told John she’s seeing someone, and then she tells Kate she’s pretty. Kate says, pleased but coy, “Am I? You’re magnificent.” Caroline whispers something dirty but indiscernible in her ear. And then that lady from the hall comes in with the tea. The woman asks if Caroline’s eaten lunch; she says, “Nope!” She asks if Caroline’s still up for some afternoon meetings, Caroline says why not.

Then she leaves, and a split second later, Caroline is suddenly leaning against the fireplace in her office as if her body is suddenly too heavy to bear, and she slowly but surely sinks to the floor. She was sure her mother was dead last night, she says, she was sure they both were. “And how sad, to find love again after all this time, and just die?” And part of you can’t get over how phenomenal Sarah Lancashire has been for the last five minutes, and part of you is suddenly slightly worried that she made out with Kate so hard only because of her exhaustion-driven hysteria, but then she asks if Kate will be home by four, and Kate says, “I can be,” and they both smile.

In less exciting news after this, Alan’s bumbling friends take him and Celia &mdash’ and Paul, who’s like a sick puppy no one wants but who you can’t leave behind to die – to a pub and his friends give him a hard time about which one’s going to be his best man; they test drive an old Land Rover for Gillian – the Lesbianmobile will be reincarnated! – and Gillian buys Celia some underwear.

And then Caroline shows up at Kate’s house! She doesn’t duck out! This is happening! Caroline’s cell phone ringing interrupts them; it’s Gillian, wondering what size knickers her mom wears. (She’s been staying at Gillian’s, and has run out.) When Kate hears this, she takes a moment to process, and then collapses into giggles, and then Caroline collapses into giggles, and it is not often that Caroline collapses into giggles! Everything right now is delightful! Meanwhile, in the absolute opposite of giggles, Alan has sat Celia down to tell her some Serious News. He wants to be completely truthful with her before their marriage, and part of that complete truth is talking a bit more about Gillian’s husband’s grisly suicide, because who doesn’t want to talk more about Gillian’s husband’s grisly suicide. Just kidding, no one does, but the story continues to unfold: it was indeed a suicide, and a barbaric one at that, apparently involving smashing his head with some type of farm equipment, but the part that’s new is that when Gillian found him, he wasn’t dead yet. Still conscious, in fact. And she stood and watched him die. Which, technically, could count as manslaughter. Accordingly, Alan has always kept this tiny detail secret, then and all these years, to protect her. And in that way, they’re both on the wrong side of the law.

Celia says that she doesn’t judge him, or Gillian, and then she rightly comments that they should move on because they need to make sure they spend enough time laughing, the two of them. So after this cheery conversation, they dance. Gillian turns up at this point and spies on them, and can’t control her laughter.

Caroline has also returned to her home, where John is still hanging about, and here begins the lesbian dominoes. She’s decided that if she loves someone enough to have sex with them, she wants to be able to bring them to the house, to have “whenever she wants them.” (You saucy minx!) If this arrangement doesn’t work for him, they’ll need a divorce, and he’ll need a good lawyer. He presses her about this mysterious person she’s seeing, eventually shouting that he forbids her bringing him to the house. She looks at him across the kitchen counter. “It’s not a he. I suppose we might as well get that out of the way.” And the first domino falls.

While John might be too shocked to say anything anyway, Caroline commences to give one of the finest, most Caroline-ish coming out speeches of all time. She asks for his discretion until she can tell the boys herself. “Obviously, if you need to take the piss and make ridiculous comments, it’d be best if you did it straight to my face and not in front of them. But being a liberal minded intellectual, I assume you won’t need to do that, anyway. (Pause.) Yeah. You might need to think about it.”

While John continues to grind his jaw around and widen his eyes like a fish, Caroline takes another call from Gillian, in which they discover that they both have the same exact birthday, down to the year. Gillian quips, “We’re twins!” What a kooky world! Then later, Gillian and Robbie make out. Not sure how I feel about this, probably because I just really want her to be making out with ladies. Regardless, it’s clear that he respects her more than most men in her life recently; he turns down on an offer to stay the night because she’s a little drunk and he wants it to be right. Robbie, maybe you should come over to America and give some young men a few talks. And then comes the scene that I almost love even more than the Kate and Caroline making out scenes. (Although they are really, really good.) Caroline has fallen asleep on her couch at the end of the night, looking deeply at peace, when Curly Haired Son sits down next to her and she gently wakes up. He asks if she has indeed been seeing someone.
Caroline: “How would you feel about it if I was?” William: “Fine. If it was someone who deserves you.” Caroline: “OK. Well then, yes, I am – seeing someone.” William: “Is it Kate McKenzie?” Caroline: “What makes you think that?” William: “Is it?” Caroline, thrown: “OK. Well, if it, if it – hmm. It was, uh, what would – how would you – ” William, interjecting: “She’s nice. I like her. She’s clever. She’s interesting. She’s kind.” Caroline: “How – how did you know?” William: “I saw you. When you came in to the exam yesterday. Just the way you looked at each other. No one else saw.” Caroline: “I won’t embarrass you.” William: “I know.” Caroline: “But this wouldn’t have happened if your father -” William: “I don’t care. I want you to be happy.”
Of course he wants you to be happy, Caroline, when he is obviously an angry young gay himself! In seriousness, though, they are equal parts anxious and awkward during this conversation, but it is the most tender type of anxious, the most heartwarming sort of awkward. And while we’ve seen many young queer characters come out to their parents and friends in a variety of media now, it’s rare to get such a wonderful and warm scene of a parent coming out to their child, and William’s acceptance and Caroline’s love for him is outstandingly lovely.

John, on the other hand, is not taking things quite as well, and has been hiding out at Judith’s house. While Judith plucks away at her writing on her laptop, John lies on her couch and moans and groans about all his lesbian woes. While he’s drunk, she actually isn’t for once, and we learn that Judith sober is in fact awesome. Here are some examples of Ridiculous Things John Says Right Now, and Awesome Replies Judith Shoots Back.

#1:

John: “She doesn’t look like a lesbian! I know what they look like. We have them on campus!” Judith: “Aren’t you quaint. What decade do you live in?”

#2:

John: “What do they do? They haven’t got anything to do anything with, have they?” Judith: “Are you being deliberately stupid?”

Duh! We always forget. You can’t have sex without the penis!

Caroline then gives a ring to invite him to a dinner she’s cooking tonight for her birthday, with the boys AND Kate. This is a bold move, but an awesome one. John calls her a sanctimonious bitch. Judith says, the thing is, I don’t really want you here either. So he invites himself over to Gillian’s. And here’s where the dominoes start to go astray.

By the time Celia and Alan return to Gillian’s after a long day of shopping, Gillian is pacing in the kitchen while an odd assortment of men are sitting in silence in the living room: Raff, Robbie, Paul, and a passed out drunk John. John has obviously spilled the beans to everyone in attendance, and when Celia and Alan walk in, Gillian tries to stutter out an explanation for John being drunk in her living room, but obviously doesn’t feel it’s her place to make this particular domino fall. John has been wakened by their arrival, however, and obviously feels no remorse himself about it. He blurts to Celia that her daughter is a lesbian, and, surprisingly, this domino seems to crash the loudest. Celia is visibly upset; she asks Gillian to make him shut up as he continues to prattle on drunkenly; she says it’s wicked; she demands him to stop saying “silly” things and “upsetting people.” Gillian offers her tea. She says angrily, “I don’t want any tea! I want to go home!”

At home, meanwhile, Caroline and Kate and the boys are having a most lovely dinner – William invites Kate to play Scrabble with them and it’s adorable! – until Judith shows up on the doorstep. And, sadly, sober Judith is no more, as she is back to slurring her words and being unsteady on her feet. She feels bad about kicking out John earlier and wanted to bring him some wine, because it’s clear that more alcohol is obviously what the two of them need. As she starts to give Caroline a big two thumbs up for the lesbian thing, she trips backwards down the steps and falls on something made of glass. While the evening started out successful, Caroline ends it in the hospital waiting room alone, with her husband’s mistress’s blood all over her. Yay! The final domino of them all happens when Gillian rings Caroline’s house and Lawrence, the Loyal-to-Dad Younger Brother, picks up. William’s fainted at all of Judith’s blood (poor gay), and Kate’s hanging out with Lawrence until Caroline returns. Gillian’s calling to give Caroline a warning about the Angry Mother Coming Home To Talk About Her Lesbianism thing, and it’s really simply unfortunate that Lawrence was the one to pick up. As Gillian continues to stutter on the phone in a similar style as she did with Celia, something about his grandma being upset and Kate staring over the table at him at that moment makes it click in Lawrence’s head, and he puts the dots together himself. Now we’re all officially on the same page. Lawrence, however, looks a little more befuddled than older, wiser, more malaised William. Good job with that, “Let me tell the kids” thing, John! The final strange turn of events in this very eventful episode is John explaining to Gillian after everyone else has left that the real reason he came over to hers was because he somehow keeps thinking about her. Was that the real reason, John? Or was it because you had nowhere else to go? And then she invites him upstairs. Sigh, Gillian, I love you, but what is going on with you and the menfolk? Paul? Robbie? John? Seriously, what’s the deal there?

There was so much lesbianism going on in this episode that I didn’t have as much time to be distracted by beautiful landscapes, but I still grabbed one. My Favorite Landscape Shot of the Week goes to this England-y pastoral scene, as pleasant as any England-y pastoral scene. What were your thoughts on this episode?

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button