Turn Your Head and Coffin

Season 21, Episode 16

First aired 27 October 2016

We open Chez Daly, where Noreen has just arrived for the first time this season, and she’s giving Katy far more detail than she ever wanted about the bus ride over. Katy keeps trying to tell her she’s pregnant, but Noreen keeps interrupting, and finally Katy blurts it out, and about two seconds later, Dee bursts in and announces that she was able to book the hotel for a Christmas wedding. Oh, Dee, “shock pregnancy” trumps “wedding venue” every time. Noreen is overcome by emotion and tries to hug and kiss Katy, but she’s too busy freaking out that Dee would dare schedule her wedding for Christmas, because Katy will be as big as a house. Well, your sister-whom-you-don’t-get-along-with’s pregnancy certainly seems like something you would want to completely base your wedding plans around. Of course, Noreen learned to ignore her daughters’ pointless and constant arguing decades ago, so she brightly proclaims that she’s got to go congratulate Jason, and Katy’s like, “Err, about that….”

Over at the pub, Bloody Peatsaí has assembled the cast and crew of the play to announce the great news that they will be performing the play at an arts festival in Westport! And I do not know what or where that is, but the group seems moderately excited. Peatsaí sorry-not-sorry apologizes that unfortunately Tadhg will not be able to join them for vague and specious insurance reasons, and stops himself only about half a step before announcing that therefore he and Frances can share a hotel room. Bloody Peatsaí tells the group they can continue rehearsing at his house just as Mo appears, so she lightly hassles him about this thing he calls “my house,” and then Tadhg calls her aside to ask when she’s going to be getting rid of “Peatsaí Ponytail.” Snerk. He continues that he’s known Bloody Peatsaí since they were young assholes in short pants, and that Mo better get rid of him ASAP, because keeping Peatsaí around always turns out badly in the end. Obviously he’s standing right there listening to all this, which I’m sure won’t come back to bite Tadhg in the butt repeatedly throughout this episode.

Katy has told her mother that she and Jason are on a wee break, and Noreen proclaims that he better get his act together and un-break because he has responsibilities now. John Joe arrives for pointless grandfather talk, and Noreen proclaims this is a miracle. Yes, an Im-Mack-ulate Conception.

Fake It Till You Bake It

Season 21, Episode 15

First aired 25 October 2016

We begin upstairs at the pub, where Tadhg has spent the day uninstalling the booby traps set by Áine, who is trying to Home Alone Pól, Andy, and any other “bold men” who might invade. He facetiously instructs her that you’ve really got to hide the rope better if you’re going to trip and/or garrote someone in a doorway, and she amusingly complains that she would if she were provided with better rope. You can’t argue with that. He asks her if she wants Mommy and Daddy to get hurt in one of her traps, and she’s basically like, “What’s the Irish word for ‘collateral damage?’” He then asks if there are any other traps around the house, and just as she says “Níl,” we hear a series of crashes and a yelp and Frances screaming “Áine!” off in the distance. Hee.

At the café, Mack is on the phone with someone about buying a minibus in a color I might generously call “space-vomit green” when David shows up, and they have a discussion about how David’s ring, which is on the table for some inexplicable reason, seems to have brought Mack more luck than it ever did David. Off in London somewhere, Gráinne is feeling an odd cosmic shiver emanating from her close-call escape from Hurricane David. He muses on how expensive weddings are, but Mack assures him that theirs will just be a meal in a hotel with family and a few friends and nothing more. David is skeptical, because women be crazy and so on, but Mack assures him that Dee is extremely sensible and does not at all be crazy. Cut to the newsagents, where we see the first issue of Dee’s Wedding, a new weekly 400-page glossy magazine that costs €25.

Ponytail of New York

Season 21, Episode 14

First aired 20 October 2016

We begin with Katy struggling to get up off her bedroom floor, and see that the head injury she sustained when she slowly and gingerly fell onto the plush rug has been enhanced with a bullet wound, apparently, because there is a lot more blood than one might expect. Ahem. Eventually she manages to stagger across the room to her phone despite being bent double by the shooting baby-itis pains, and she calls someone. Pizza delivery?

Pól awakens after a night of sleeping rough in a shed somewhere, and digs through his rucksack for a morsel of food, which he devours hungrily. He really has transformed into Oliver Twist, but with a mobile phone. He calls someone and rudely orders a breakfast delivery, and his charm and attitude really make you want to help him. No, wait, I mean “smack him.”

In the street, Dee is admiring how sparkly her new ring is, and Mack pretends to be interested while actually calculating how many Japanese tourists he’ll need to cart around to earn the €3500 it cost. You’ll recall this is the same Mack who last season had to get Mo to pay for his hernia surgery or lobotomy or whatever it was. Ahh, love. Dee can guess that Mack didn’t discuss their engagement with John Joe when they went out last night, given that Mack still reeks of alcohol and desperation. He asks if she really thinks her dad will be upset when he finds out, and Dee is basically like, “Well, he’s a complete dick, as you know, so probably.” Mack suggests that Dee tell him instead, given that John Joe will be at least 20% less likely to murder her, but she insists it has to be him, because she’s old-fashioned that way. Her phone rings a fraction of a second behind schedule, resulting in a moment of “standing around waiting for the phone to ring” acting, and it’s Katy, who rudely doesn’t want to listen to Dee carrying on about her ring, and instead is all “I’m lying on the floor bleeding out, waaah” in typical “me, me, me” Katy fashion.

Mo Dogs Allowed

Season 21, Episode 13

First aired 18 October 2016

We open with Dee flitting around the bachelor pad admiring her new engagement ring. Mack, of course, is trying to talk her into swapping it for a different one, i.e., one that doesn’t belong to someone else, but she’s in love with this one and will not be dissuaded. She might change her tune when she finds out that she may technically be engaged to David. Speaking of Father Karate, he arrives, asking for the whereabouts of his ring, and meanwhile Dee is trying to show him said ring, and despite Mack’s best efforts to change the subject, talking about scones and coffee and James Joyce and so on, Dee steamrolls over him and shows David the ring. David yells that it’s his, and glares at Mack, which causes Dee to glare at Mack, and Mack understandably gets a sudden case of imminent-diarrhea-face.

Katy is sitting in her bedroom reading her So You Got Knocked Up pregnancy book, which has become a supporting character on the show lately, when Pádraig bursts in in a complete tizzy and insists she needs to stop being pregnant for a minute and run over to Gaudi. She weakly protests that it’s her day off, but he and his crazy eyes and aggressive beard won’t take no for an answer. I hope it’s that he’s holding that possibly-fictitious Frances Brennan guy from last season captive in the cellar until he agrees to put Gaudi on his TV show.

Otherwise Engaged

Season 21, Episode 12

First aired 13 October 2016

We open with more of David vs Pól with Rónán in the middle, which: ugh. We are outside the button factory or wherever Micheál works, where Pól is lounging on a bag of fertilizer while Rónán is lugging things around as part of some type of work-like arrangement. I don’t even know. David angrily tells Pól to scram and leave Rónán alone, but Pól is of course defiant and smirky, and you just want to smack him. He tells David that he and Rónán have been thinking about how the Gardaí knew where to find them and have concluded that David must’ve grassed them up, but given that Rónán has an expression on his face that suggests if you could see inside his head there’d be a cartoon pig dancing and playing an accordion, I suspect Pól is doing most of the thinking. David denies these allegations, and now Rónán is being defiant and awful, too, and even David seems tired of this storyline.

At the pub, Frances and Peatsai are discussing the play, about which she is excited and optimistic, and he is creepy and lecherous. He puts on a show for Tadhg of complimenting and cozying up to Frances and saying things to her that are semi-gross, and then smirks at him, and you can tell by the expression on Tadhg’s face that he is clearly imagining various ways to liquefy Peatsai.

The Kids Aren't Alright, or, Teenage Pricks

Season 21, Episode 11

First aired 11 October 2016

We begin this somewhat slow episode at the B&B, where Laoise is sadly polishing Peadar’s watch. Berni arrives and they marvel that it still keeps perfect time an entire month after his death. I guess Peadar had a reputation for buying tat that we didn’t know about. Laoise is obviously very attached to it as a memento of her late father, so Berni naturally snatches it out of her hands and says she’s been meaning to give it to Evan. Well, at least she’s clueless and self-absorbed about it rather than malicious, but this does not bring Laoise comfort for some reason. Cousin Sally or whoever she is arrives so she and Berni can work together to exclude Laoise more efficiently, and they disappear upstairs to go comfort Máire, leaving poor Laoise there with lots of quiet solitude to reflect on what an outcast she is.

Tadhg interrupts Mo and David’s lunch at Gaudi to ask him every li’l thing about Andy’s attack, including how he found David and whether he seemed to be, you know, dead. David is evasive and Mo tells Tadhg to buzz off, which he eventually does, after David admits he didn’t see Andy’s face but magically knew it was him, which causes Mo to raise an eyebrow or two. Micheál drops by to tell David that Pól, the exhausting hooligan we’ve been trying to ignore for the past few weeks, can work a few hours at the dry cleaners or whatever kind of business Micheál owns, and Mo thinks this is a terrible idea, what with everyone in the village wanting to push Pól off a series of cliffs or possibly in front of a caravan of buses.

Chez Odd Couple, Bobbi-Lee is meditating while sitting cross-legged on the coffee table, as one does, but eventually her mantra-chanting and chakra-bleaching are interrupted by a high-pitched, annoying sound, which turns out to be Berni’s voice. Berni scolds her for leaving the door open and also existing, and Bobbi-Lee complains that Berni interrupted her visualization exercises, which presumably involve her visualizing Berni bursting into flames. They argue for a bit, and Berni rolls her eyes so far up in her head she can see her brain as Bobbi-Lee shoots daggers at her. I’m glad things are back to normal with them after last week, because when they’re being nice to each other I feel very unnerved, as if an asteroid is about to crash into the earth or something.

That Time Áine Kidnapped Herself

Season 21, Episode 10

First aired 6 October 2016

We open at the community center where Berni is helpfully telling Frances that Áine might have gone down to the river because Berni took her down there after Lee died. This of course makes Frances feel much better because every worried mother wants to imagine that her small missing child has wandered down to the river alone. Why not just tell her about the time you took Áine to play at the cobra farm, Berni? Anyway, Berni has somehow become the coordinator of the search effort, as signified by the fact that she is holding a clipboard, and even Peatsai is taking things very seriously, which you can tell because he is wearing a somber khaki Members Only jacket over his Hawaiian shirt. (I’m finally going to start referring to him as “Peatsai” rather than “Uncle Pest” because he’s hung around a lot longer than I expected him to.) Berni dispatches the menfolk to various locales to look for Áine, including telling Evan to “search the village,” which is very specific and helpful indeed. Before they disperse, which in this case means “go to the café en masse for free food,” David congratulates her on the good job she’s doing as coordinator, and she looks bravely into the middle distance and says it’s the least she can do, what with her brother being the one who probably killed Áine and all.

Mack is holding down the fort in the café, and I can’t tell whether the shirt he’s wearing is some kind of work uniform or normal street clothes, but he looks quite fetching in it either way. Rrawr! Pádraig shows up and asks Mack what’s up with the salon, because the doors are locked and all the employees (?) are standing around in the street waiting for Caitríona to show up. Mack is very helpful, of course, in that he’s like, “We have a salon here?” and also, “What’s a salon?”

Night Of The Living Andy

Season 21, Episode 9

First aired 4 October 2016

We open in the kitchen at Ros na Rún’s swingingest bachelor pad, where Pádraig and Mo are playing doctor with David, but not like that, you pervs. Mo presses him on what happened, but he refuses to admit that he fought the Pól and the Pól won and instead storms out. Pádraig and Mo can’t imagine who would do such a thing to a delightful imp like David, because they can’t even recall him ever falling out with anyone … except with one person! Recently! Which you may have forgotten about!

At the pub, Dee is sweetly pointing out to Katy that she’s got much better things to do than sit around listening to her whine about her stupid problems, but assures her that she won’t spill the beans about this shock pregnancy tempest-in-a-teapot nonsense Katy won’t let go of. Katy splits when Mack arrives, and Dee reminds him that he’s supposed to pick her up at the gym or somewhere later today. It’s a logistically dense sub-sub-sub-plot without much payoff, so I’m going to skip over it as we cut to the bar, where Tadhg is half-heartedly attempting to throw Caitríona out for taking up valuable barstool space and basically being annoying. She snots that he’s just in a mood because Bobbi-Lee told her about Andy, and he of course tells her to ignore Bobbi-Lee because she’s a stupid lying floozy and so on. There must be at least five people in the human resources department at the pub working ‘round the clock on employee grievances. Anyway, he tells her to sling her hook and get back to painting nails where she belongs. If there’s anyone I enjoy watching Tadhg hurl abuse at, it’s Caitríona, but for no apparent reason she gets insulted and stomps out in a huff. Wimmen, amiright?!? Frances, whose concerned face really gets a workout in this episode, worries that Caitríona’s not going to give up till she finds out the truth, but Tadhg doesn’t care because Caitríona is just a harmless pest.

The Daly Show

Season 21, Episode 8

First aired 29 September 2016

We open with Mack and Dee in the street being all giggly and in love, which is of course TV shorthand for “it’s all about to hit the fan for them.” They spot John Joe and Katy moving her stuff out of Jason’s, and while Mack hopefully suggests that she’s doing some autumnal spring cleaning, or possibly taking her old stuff on Antiques Roadshow I guess, Dee knows it means Katy and Jason have broken up “again!”, as she editorializes. Well, she’s not wrong. She tells Mack that she should go check on Katy and find out what’s going on, since the two of them are so close and supportive and all, but Mack quickly says that, no, he should go talk to her, and Dee reminds us that it was Mack’s door Katy knocked on the last time she and Jason broke up. Well, I’d say it was more that he knocked on her door, really, if I remember how straight-people sex works.

At Gaudi, David is on the phone desperately trying to get in touch with teen tearaway Pól’s brother when last year’s teen tearaway Rónán bursts in all out of breath and teen traumatized because Pól has just trashed An Teaghlach. David furrows his brow and then assures Rónán he’ll take care of it, which Rónán does not believe at all because he has actually met David. You can’t karate away all your problems, Father!

You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Katy

Season 21, Episode 7

First aired 27 September 2016

Dia duit! We’re back, after a long summer of waiting with baited breath to find out if Bobbi-Lee survived Andy’s attack (she did!) and if Andy survived Frances’ impromptu ride on the Dodgems (it seems he did not). Unfortunately I was sidetracked from the recapping business by a detached retina on the day of the season 21 premiere and was banned by the doctor from using a computer until just now, so sadly the first six episodes of this season will be lost to the mists of unrecapped time. I’m sure Dr. Tiarnán would’ve found a way to get me up and running again sooner, which is only about 80% a euphemism.

So! We have a new title sequence this year! My favorite bit, Bobbi-Lee holding up the baby cowboy outfit, is gone, but we do have new scenes of sulky Katy punching a sofa cushion and Uncle Pest in a Hawaiian shirt, which you have to admit are pretty representative of them.

We open at Katy and Jason’s, where he’s late for a meeting and turning the place upside-down looking for his laptop, but it does not seem to be in any of the likely places in which he’s looking, such as under a teacup or inside the sugar dish. Katy, of course, is not interested in this, this time because she’s busy sniffing the milk and proclaiming it’s gone off. Jason argues that it was fine this morning when he had some in his tea, so there must be something wrong with her nose. I am familiar with how this discussion goes, because whenever I throw out the milk because it’s gone gelatinous and radioactive, my husband insists it was fine when he had it in his coffee earlier. He had to scoop it out of the carton with a spoon, but still. Anyway, Jason tells her he thinks she’s still sick, and his expert medical opinion is that it’s not food poisoning as she claims, but side effects from the fertility treatments. God willing, he muses, she won’t have to endure those much longer. Well, Mack willing, anyway. Fortunately for Katy, and the world of big-business computing, Jason finds his laptop, which amazingly was in his laptop case, and then zooms off, leaving Katy sitting there all impregnated and whatnot.