This really weird thing has happened. The BBC is airing a show about a 40-year-old woman finally being pushed by her friends to come out to her parents. Sounds normal enough, but get this: it’s a comedy! Wait. Lesbians can be funny? Shut the front door, Sue Perkins! Welcome to Heading Out, written by and starring Sue Perkins as Sara, who we first meet at her vet practice where she’s currently dealing with a pretty-dead cat and its deranged owner. We also meet her friend and co-worker Daniel, played by Steve Oram, as he’s working on this brilliant display in the lobby, a display which seals the deal that we’re going to like this show. As if we weren’t already signed onto the deal of a show with a funny lesbian vet protagonist. Later that day, as Sara begins to wrap up the now-really-dead-cat in a plastic bag to be cremated, she makes what turns out to be a booty call to a kooky, hip wisp of a blonde girl. If you can’t see it, a paper on her desk just visible as she calls reads, LIFE CYCLE OF A HAMSTER: BORN, MATE, DEATH. I am in love with the ridiculous vet office props already!
Before Sara hops on top of the hip blonde girl once she gets to her apartment, she first removes the approximately five million cartons of yogurt she has in her fridge to insert the dead-cat-in-a-bag into it, which she hasn’t been able to take to the crematorium yet, which is normal. And then she proceeds to actually hop on top of the hip blonde girl. We next see this lovely shot – – during which Sara is woken up by parents calling to wish her a happy 40th birthday. The machine picks up their call and we hear them talking about how they just received a wonderful email from a lad in Nigeria about how they’d won the lottery in Lagos, as Sara hops around to get clothed and pour herself a bowl of cereal before she actually picks up. This is where the writing, in my opinion, really starts to pick up and make me laugh. When her mom starts to go on about how she doesn’t want her to be alone, Sara ends up making up a lie about how she HAS met someone – a Frenchman, who’s a salesman. When her mom asks of what, she replies, “Legs. Mainly legs.” Her mom insists on “the four of them” meeting up for dinner, and Sara thinks of a ridiculous excuse for each weekend until it’s gotten to six weeks away, which is the limit of ridiculous excuses. She marks the date on her calendar like it’s armageddon.
Hip blonde girl peeks her head into the kitchen like a younger, messier, British Sarah Jessica Parker, and she is disturbed by what she just overhead: not only is Sara still closeted to her parents, but she’s also 40, not 32 as she had been told. Gasp!
Sara: Well, I never thought you’d BELIEVE me. Blonde girl: I should have known. You tap your feet to music. You invite someone over for sex, and then offer them yogurt. Sara: Osteoporosis is really on the rise, so it’s – Blonde girl: This is a deeply uncool situation. I mean, I’m embarrassed. I’ll see ya.Sara then heads to her bestie’s house, the overly neurotic Jamie, played by Dominic Coleman, who ignores Sara’s existential angst of feeling shame constantly draping around her “like ivy,” and how she’s worried that if it all goes away, there might be nothing left underneath. He asks her to take her feet off the table. Hence is the beauty of comedy: slipping in harsh truths without even giving us time to overthink it; moving swiftly on without crying. She then asks him to be her French speaking, artificial-leg-selling beard for when her parents visit. He, unsurprisingly, says no. They both head out to meet other bestie, Justine, played by Nicola Walker (yes, I love you!), at Justine and Sara’s netball match. Dumb American Admission #1: Listen, I had never heard of netball before this very moment. It appears to be a basketball-ish game, except the ball is passed and never dribbled, and the net is weird and dinky, and also Justine and Sara’s team suck at it. Justine gets a red card and is kicked out of the game; she storms out of the exit to promptly turn around and walk back in to retrieve her bag (still holding the dead cat) and her dog, who is absolutely adorable, and walk back out – again. “I am fully aware of how embarrassing this is on every level, so – goodbye!”
Her blundering day of a birthday finally starts to look up as she walks home through a park and, after rescuing an off-leash dog from some tangled barbed wire, discovers that the owner of the dog is this beauty: Played by Shelley Conn, otherwise known as Nina of Nina’s Heavenly Delights, this beauty and Sara share a deliciously natural and flirty banter which I never want to end. This scene also exposes Sara’s insecurities as not simply awkward, as it’s appeared all episode, but suddenly adorably, lovably vulnerable. After Sara gives her her card, Nina, here known as Eve, remarks, “You don’t do eye contact much, do you?” Sara says no, not when she can help it. Eve invites her to try it more often. As she walks away, Sara invites her to the “surprise” birthday party she knows Justine and Jamie are planning for her. Eve asks if Sara not supplying her with where or when the party is happening is also a surprise. Sara says sure. Eve says she’ll consider it a challenge. And I am flailing. At the surprise party, Sara actually is surprised by Hip Young Blonde being there, which she finds out a few moments before Wonderful Eve fulfills her challenge and shows up, too. Whoopsie! Sara gulps her wine. Even after Hip Young Blonde declares that Sara is an unfulfilling shag, and also after Sara’s dog has finally drug the dead cat out of her bag-great party trick!-Eve still invites Sara outside to have a fag with a dashing, heart-stopping smile. Sara says she will, right after the color in her cheeks returns to a more normal shade. But it turns out she doesn’t even have a chance to continue the glorious flirting before Jamie and Justine bring everyone together for a toast. Jamie begins:
“Sara – you are smug, intellectually insecure, messy, and a nightmare girlfriend!”
“But you are also, as much as it pains me to say it, lovable, and we want you to be happy.” There you go! They then reveal that her friends have pooled together to get her a mystery gift, which Sara has to put on a blindfold for for the reveal. When she opens her eyes, she sees this! Just a woman wearing a Nordic style dress with pointy gold boobs! The same woman that Sara earlier fouled in netball! Turns out she’s also a life coach, and she’s going to help Sara tell her parents that she’s a “big old gay” before their visit in six weeks. If she doesn’t do it, the life coach has been instructed to share the big old gay news herself. Sara is incredulous. “You’re going to out me to my mother? What’s wrong with you?” To which Jamie responds, “What’s wrong with YOU? You’d rather have a friend speak French and pretend to be your boyfriend than tell the truth. You’re so scared of who you are.” Sara tries to avoid this weird situation altogether and sputters, “Look, there’s this amazing girl outside – ” Jamie cuts her off, “There’s always an amazing girl.” But as he says, she has to focus on bettering her own life, now. (But look Jamie, there really IS an amazing girl outside!) The episode ends with Toria, the life coach, bringing her in for “a big breasted cuddle.” I am in love with this life coach already! Yes, I am clearly in love with a lot of things already! While pilots can always feel slightly awkward as we meet brand new characters for the first time, by the time this episode brought us to the party, I felt like it had really fallen into its perfect pace, and I was all in. I’m pumped for the life coach, pumped for more Sara floundering, more Daniel ridiculousness, and more Nicola Walker. I would also say I’m pumped for more Shelley Conn, but I’m extremely sad to say it looks like she doesn’t show up again; maybe Sara left her waiting for a fag for too long. But if it makes you feel better, one Anna Skellern – Lexi! – is supposed to show up in the third episode.
And while the idea of “forcing” someone to come out can be a touchy subject, I think the concept as it’s portrayed in this show is nothing but empowering and important. Forcing someone to come out while they’re younger and/or not in a supportive environment, where they could literally face danger if they were outed, is one thing, and one requires empathy and support. But forcing a grown woman to fess up to her true self who has a solid life and supportive friends, who’s trapped only by her own fear, is a message that the world needs to hear and see infinitely more of.
What did you think of the pilot?
