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“Candy Bar Girls” recap: Episode 2

“Great LezBritian” is a fortnightly stroll through the very best of British lesbo-centric entertainment and culture. Plus there will be some jolly good interviews with the top ladies who are waving the flag for gay UK.

We’ll be frank: The very thought of consuming another hour of the Candy Girls is not putting us in the best of moods. Indeed we feel positively lackluster about it. We keep thinking about the constructive, fun things we could be doing with our lives instead, like tax returns or self-waxing. However, we’re trying not to be negative about it so let’s just dive knee deep into the Candy Bar Girls world, part deux.

Immediately we’re introduced to 28-year-old Jo Davis, a DJ who often spins the vinyl at The Candy Bar.

Jo’s new girlfriend, Daisy, is a barrister, but this new love affair doesn’t matter too much to Jo because she feels she needs to concentrate more on herself right now as she follows her dream of becoming a primary school teacher.

The night owl Jo is damn serious about this new career path and expresses it by getting ready to go shopping for primary school teacher attire. Girlfriend Daisy, a woman of the crown, has been suited and booted for seven years and likens her girlfriend to a superhero.

Daisy: “She’s going to be like the lesbian DJ version of Clark Kent.”

We fail quite spectacularly to understand what Daisy is going on about. Everyone knows Clark Kent was a journalist. And a damn fine one too.

Jo meets up with a man called Bunny who thinks that the task of buying her some smart clothes is a tricky one. Indeed the task seems a bit of a headf–k for Jo, too.

Jo: I’m seeing all these lovely clothes and they are lovely but it’s just so far from anything I could ever – I’d just, I don’t know. It all just seems really odd for me.

Lee: If she can’t get her head round buying a cardigan and a pair of slacks, I’m worried about her ability to teach the times table.

Bunny says what we’re all thinking – he can’t imagine Jo being a teacher. But then three seconds later, Bunny says he now can imagine Jo being a teacher. Just as we’re about to question Bunny’s little rabbit brain, he makes a carrot out of a serviette and blows our minds.

Sarah: Do you remember the time I made an aubergine out of a crisp packet?

Lee: No.

Next to be added to the Candy Bar fray are lovebirds Rachael and Rox, who have been together for a staggering six weeks. Finally, a bit of long-term commitment on this show. At this stage of their lengthy relationship, they are awfully tactile and giggly with one another. It’s a bit annoying.

Rachael romantically recalls how the pair finally got together. She tells us, “We were going out on a night out, and it sounds horrific, but I had in my head that something might happen, that I got really drunk and I’d have to go back to hers.

Sarah: How does this sound horrific? Horrific would be going back to her flat and finding the head of your dead cat pinned to the wall above her bed.

Rachael travels to her family home in middle class suburbia to celebrate her birthday with new girlfriend, Rox, in tow. Everyone seems pleased as punch that Rox has become part of their extended family. Rachael’s dad, who is shown to be a Christian by saying grace and a bit of a crazy man by singing a song that no one understands, is accepting and all in all Rachael’s family seem very Swiss Family Robinson about her recent step into lesbianism. This little scene is a delight to behold on our screens.

The camera hotfoots it quick sticks round to DJ Jo’s flat because she’s been burgled. Christ, we hope they haven’t taken her new primary school teacher clothing. It seems not, but they have taken her DJ music, which means she can’t earn a crust. Flat mate Simon understands her troubles. He says, “Yeah it’s traumatic, especially as it’s never happened to you before.”

Lee: Whereas if this robbing lark was happening every day of the week, she should just be told to turn her frown upside down?

Alex, episode one’s lush of a barmaid, is being taken on a surprise jaunt to Paris by her squeeze of one year, Sam.

Whilst in Paris, Sam is planning to surprise Alex once more with a proposal.

Their romantic weekend doesn’t get off to a sterling start as they are directed to a lesbian bar that has about as much life as a wet tissue. However, fast-forward the evening a couple of hours and Alex is pissed and Sam is ever more in love with her ladyfriend. Alex agrees that you should not judge a book by its cover (meaning the bar) and skips through the streets of gay Paree and all the way back to her hotel with a bottle of half drunken vodka.

Jo has made a phone call to the police about her stolen goods and they have retrieved her belongings untouched. Wow. Really? We smell a rat. A rat that has the power of manipulating reality TV in a transparent attempt to make it more interesting.

Doorbreaker Lucy got the heave-ho less than a month ago, but Jessie D is already off on a date and she’s looking for a girl with charisma and short hair. Her date is Lee-Sui, who has short hair.

Lee-Sui seems right up for the Jessie D challenge, she wines and dines her, and mid-date, she practically begs to see her the next night. Jessie D acts with as much indifference as she can muster, flicking away any Lee-Sui advances to show that she don’t need nobody because she’s a super fly, single girl who can totally pole dance and s–t.

Sarah: I’m missing Sandra

Lee: Whoa Nelly, Jessie D and friend are in a Fetish shop.

Sarah: OK, I’ll strap myself back in.

After momentarily sticking a dildo up her nose, Jessie D buys some nipple tassels and a tie. She doesn’t even check the price tag.

Alex wakes up in Paris with a sheet wrapped around her head. They go on a boat trip and Sam momentarily forgets the language they speak in France and tries to order some croissants in Spanish. Sam leads Alex to an area of seclusion and pops the question. Alex runs off screaming blue murder, takes off her shoe and begins to eat it. (We just made this up for melodrama’s sake as she does none of this and simply says “yes” to Sam.)

To pay tribute to her mum, DJ Jo gets a tattoo of a horse and a carousel. The significance of image sprawled across is pretty lame and really just seems to amount to her mum likes horses and carousels.

Daisy and her friends are getting ready for a fetish night and DJ Jo can’t go because she’s got to teach five-year-olds in the morning. Her own absence is causing her to be jealous, no doubt imagining Daisy being whipped amongst scantily clad others.

Across the Thames, Jessie D is also getting her fetish apparel on because, of course, she’s going too. All in all, there’s a truckload of cleavage, leather and hair all heading towards this night of thigh-slapping debauchery.

Jessie D thinks the fetish night is pretty lame so decides to get some entertainment going. The entertainment comes courtesy of her pole dancing. She just wants to make the world dance.

Sarah: Where is Sandra?

DJ Jo has decided to forsake the five-year-olds and turns up at the club half-cut. She soon gets jealous of Daisy touching another woman’s hair – her head hair.

Jo says, “I’m calling a cab because I’m trying to be a primary school teacher. I have to get up in like five hours time to teach small children. I’m here for you, not because I want to be. I’m here for you. I’m here on no sleep after having a sh–ty arse tattoo for you. If you want to cause a drama about it –

Lee: Liar, liar pants on fire, she got that tattoo for her mum.

Daisy, Daisy is crazy for the love of Jo because despite Jo reeling off this big load of s–t, she breaks down and pines for her love. DJ Jo then turns into someone we would not really trust with our five-year-old child. Whist flapping one arm like a crazy chicken she tells Daisy that she (Jo) needs to look after herself because everyone wants to just take the piss. We have been shown no evidence of this at all so far.

The next morning in her class, Jo tries to get a scared child to stroke a fluffy hat.

Admitting things aren’t going swimmingly, Jo admits that she might have drunk too much and that she must be teacher or a DJ, but not both. What a riveting story arc we have on our hands. What will Jo decide?

Shabby’s handsome brother Wade is a paranormal investigator and, according to Shabby, the Candy Bar is rumoured to be haunted. Like an operator of genius happenings, Channel Five bringeth together our next segment in a subtle undertaking of overlapping coincidences.

Wade gathers Shabby, Red, Jessie D, Alex, Sam and other Candy Bar associates in a circle and calls out to the dead.

A thud is heard and one of the Candy Bar staff skedaddles and tries to explain what noise she heard.

Candy Bar Employee who shat herself: I heard a thud, not a like a stomp but a thud inside. You know not like this *knocks on door* like a deep thud, not like a hollow. Like a, like a, like a – thud.

Sarah: Do you think that’s Sandra locked in the cupboard, because we still haven’t seen her?

Lee: Maybe it’s Jo trying to tunnel her way to Shoreditch.

Wade goes to the ladies toilet to try to communicate with the dead. He then goes to a cupboard and calls out again. Everyone squeezes in, waits with bated breath, gets terribly scared because they think they hear a thud and run out of there. It’s exactly how Gary would have reacted had the whole of Candy Bar been painted luminous pink.

After being cramped into a cupboard and hearing one of the camera crew knocking on the cupboard door with a kind of scary-a-sed thud effect, Shabby feels as high as a kite about the experience.

DJ Jo gets a conditional offer to go to teacher training college and we feel relieved that this is the end of episode two.

“Great LezBritain” authors Sarah, a Londoner, and Lee, a Glaswegian, met in a gay discotheque one bleak mid winter, eight years ago and have been shacked up together ever since. When not watching Tipping The Velvet, they find time to write, run a PR company, DJ at their own club nights and love a bit of jam on toast. Follow them on Twitter at greatlezbritain.

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