Everybody Loves Laoise

Season 21, Episode 74

First aired 18 May 2017

We open at the B&B, where Eric and Laoise are sneaking downstairs after a night of wanting each other’s sex. He jokes that Máire’s going to catch them, which Laoise finds about as funny as food poisoning, and he playfully asks her if she’s always so cranky in the morning. I’m not sure why he imagines she’d be any different in the morning than she is the rest of the time. He’s unable to resist her sexy nuclear blue Walmart greeter’s vest and they start making out, but manage to pull themselves apart seconds before Máire appears and has to turn the hose on them. She wonders what Laoise’s doing there given she doesn’t, you know, live there anymore, so Laoise says it’s because she had a stone in her shoe. Well, that explains everything. She continues that living at Micheál’s is super-iontach, and in fact she’s cooking him a huge feast tonight to thank him, and she’s here at the crack of dawn because she needs to borrow Máire’s recipe book. So, forget all that stuff about a stone in her shoe she made up earlier, because she’s drunk and didn’t know what she was saying, I guess. She and Eric flirt with each other some more, which Máire is completely oblivious to, because these days she’s really only tuned into male homoeroticism.

Back at the IKEA showroom where Micheál lives, he’s moving things around the set when Laoise slinks in. He’s surprised because he thought she was still in bed, and in fact, now that he thinks of it, he doesn’t remember hearing her come in last night, either! Laoise, of course, is a quick thinker who is capable of making up a believable lie on the spot, unlike all the male characters on this show, who would’ve immediately launched into a story involving a nuclear-powered robot who learns to love just in time to return to his home planet. And, if it were Mack, also a really big dog. She starts explaining that she ran into some friends at the pub and whatnot, but Micheál interrupts her and says that unlike at Máire’s House Of Snooping And Vermin, she doesn’t have to answer any questions or explain herself here at IKEA Ros na Rún. She breathes a sigh of relief, which in her case looks more like an annoyed grimace of relief, and I’m sure it’s the end of the teen sex hijinks for this episode.

At Gaudi, Adam thanks a waitress for the empty coffee cup she’s just set in front of him, but Fia is too busy pretending to drink out of hers to say thank you, or even to ask if she can have one with something in it next time. It seems the next stage of Pádraig’s plan to destroy the restaurant is to transform every meal into a children’s imaginary tea party. Máire arrives and completely blanks the pair of them, which is a relief to Adam, but Fia is suspicious, because she’s known her grandmother long enough to know that her only two modes are “passive-aggressive silent treatment” and “intrusive pest.” Fia looks fab today, by the way, with some really great jewelry and that bonkers yellow Gustav Klimt hoodie over a simple black shirt. Clearly hanging around with all these gay men has improved her fashion sense, because in the olden days she would’ve worn the bonkers jacket over an insane Jackson Pollock bustier and an enormous plaid crinolined Cyndi Lauper skirt. She asks Adam what kind of bee is up Mamó’s arse this time, but he nervously explains that she’s always in a mood, ha ha. Fia gives him a brilliant “Girl, NO” look, so he explains that Máire’s been distant to him ever since he got into that imaginary brawl the other day. Fia wants to go argue it out with her, but Adam’s priority here is to keep them apart as long as possible, so to distract her, he takes her hand and tells her smilingly that he’s been thinking about that holiday abroad she was banging on about the other day. She looks very happy at this, because it’s the first time he’s been able to mention it without throwing up.

A particularly violent episode of The Odd Couple has broken out at John Joe’s, where Colm is practicing telling his story about how his smashed-in face is due to crashing his car into a dinosaur when he was startled by a blue genie named Babu materializing out of his e-cigarette. John Joe warns him that nobody is going to believe this nonsense, because he has many years of experience lying to the local townsfolk and therefore has a much better sense of exactly how gullible they are.

Back at Gaudi, Adam is spraying rainbows and unicorns at Fia from every orifice, telling her how lovely it would be to go on holiday to Chechnya or wherever as a family, and as a bonus, disappearing for a while would give Máire a chance to get over whatever UNREASONABLE AND TOTALLY WITHOUT BASIS problem she has with him at the moment. Right, because Máire has never been one to carry a grudge, or to latch onto something and refuse to let go of it, like a dog with a holy bone. He says he’s found a last-minute deal for this weekend, and it’s a great bargain because the hotel just burned down, so if she agrees, they could be on the scenic coast of Belarus quicker than you can say “I Will Survive.” Máire finally decides to come over, and Adam starts to get up to leave her alone with Fia, which of course is the absolute last thing he would ever do right now, and Fia tells her that they’ve decided to go on holiday this weekend. Máire, who does not seem to think this is a very good idea for some reason, starts sputtering, and when Fia walks off to pay the bill, Adam gets all up in her face and angrily asks her if she wants to ruin Fia’s life. Yeah, Adam’s already on that particular case, and he doesn’t need any help. He bogs off in a huff, and when Fia returns, Máire starts telling her that she can’t go traipsing off around the world with a boy she barely knows. Of course, having a baby with your mother’s boyfriend really changes the way one looks at things, so Fia breezily tells her that she’s known Adam for four and a half whole months. She could have another half a baby by now! Máire dismissively tells her that four and a half months is nothing—why, she’d dated Peadar for a year and a half before she even told him her name!—and that it’s important to know whether someone is gay before traveling with him, because otherwise you will be surprised when his holiday playlist turns out to be Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” over and over. They argue for a while, and Fia complains that Máire’s opinion of Adam changes like the wind, which is completely accurate, and that if she knew him the way Fia does, she wouldn’t be so tough on him, which is perhaps slightly less on-point.

At the community center, Mo, who’s also looking fab today in a space yoga outfit, asks Colm where the rest of his face is. He responds by trying to flirt with her, and it’s yucky, and then Laoise arrives and asks him what the hell happened to him and how much longer his nose will be in the shop. He explains that he crashed his car into a tree, so Laoise says it must be a write-off, and because he is stupid, it seems he didn’t think about the fact that people might ask questions when his face looked like an imploded tower block but there wasn’t a scratch on his car. Mo continues dismantling this story by asking why there was nothing on the radio about the accident, which makes me think that whatever radio station she listens to must be very different from the ones here, because for a car crashing into a tree to make the news here, the car would have to be carrying Madonna, Oprah Winfrey, and the Dalai Lama, and the tree would have to be the Statue of Liberty. She also points out how odd it is that he’s all smiles after totaling his car and face, so before she can ask any more questions, he volunteers that he’s applying for a broker’s license, because it will allow him to take more tax write-offs on his money laundering. By now Laoise is long gone, but Mo stands around listening to this nonsense much longer than one might expect, and it’s really time for her to extricate herself from the metaphorical car crash that is Colm’s life, because there’s another big tree coming his way, and he keeps getting the brake and the accelerator mixed up.

Out in the street, Eric grabs Laoise’s arse and its environs and tells her he’s got romantic plans for them tonight, which involve him taking her out on his friend’s boat. This may or may not be a euphemism. He continues that there will be fishing, which I know is always a top consideration for my dirty weekends, but somehow Laoise doesn’t think this sounds very romantic, complaining that she doesn’t want to be “up to my ears in fish scales and spewing my guts up.” Amazingly, that also describes every date with Micheál, and he doesn’t even have a boat.

Around the corner, Micheál runs into Máire, who’s furiously polishing the street. He tries to make polite conversation with her, but she talks nonsense and acts like a crazy person, I mean even more than usual. Her neurons finally start firing in more or less the same direction and she tells Micheál how happy she is about his relationship with Laoise. Of course, he’s under the impression that he and Laoise are only friends, but Máire winks and insinuates and puts on her rah-rah skirt and thrusts her pelvis around, telling him about the big fuss Laoise’s going to be making over him tonight, with the fancy dinner and the riding Eric. When Micheál looks at her blankly, she worries that she’s spoiled the surprise and dashes inside, leaving him alone on the pavement looking simultaneously surprised and pleased with himself.

Caitríona returns home from the CaitrionaVision Song Contest, in which she came in 153rd place, and is warmly greeted by Maeve, who’s made a miraculous recovery from yesterday’s combined case of school-itis and Little Madam Measles. Vince is annoyed by all of this, and of course Caitríona is a smiling, passive-aggressive wagon about it, telling him it’s not his fault, it’s just that he’s completely incompetent and incredibly stupid. He wanders away to go jump off the roof or whatever, and Maeve whines to her mother that she was on the brink of death and Vince made her go to school anyway, and Caitríona coos that she knows, but that Vince can’t help it that he’s a moron, and also a terrible person. Maeve insists that Caitríona never go out of town without her again, threatening that it would be very dangerous to leave her there on her own again. Yes, especially since she’s recently acquired an imaginary friend who tells her to burn things. She carries on for a while and eventually overplays her hand so badly that Caitríona realizes she’s a manipulative, self-absorbed little liar. GEE, I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE SHE GETS THAT FROM.

Seán, who we’d almost forgotten is a thing, confronts Colm in the shop, and the two of them argue for a while and compare their artfully applied scars and cuts. If you connect the scabs on Colm’s face, it spells “Anto Was Here.” Meanwhile, Máire has summoned Adam to the B&B for a word, and that word is “Quaaludes.” She tells him he’s got to tell Fia the truth before she gets hurt, and he insists there’s nothing to tell, and that they’re in love, and that it would be really cool if Erasure made a record with the Pet Shop Boys. She says she’d prefer the truth come from him, but if he won’t do it, she’ll tell Fia herself, because Fia is the only person in this relationship she gives a damn about. I’m paraphrasing, but not by much. Of course he gets furious and jumps up shouting and slams his chair down and then runs out the door, leaving her to do her famous “cowering in fear” move, which I am trying to turn into a new dance craze called “The Máire.”

After the break, Caitríona actually has the nerve to go interrupt Vince at his job and ask him to look after Maeve until the babysitter comes. He sarcastically asks if she thinks he’s really up for that task, what with his incredible stupidity and all, but she chuckles and flings her hair around and acts sort of like a human being, because she wants something. She confesses that Maeve can’t be trusted, and makes it all about herself for a while, but fortunately just before we climb into the TV and hit her with that giant plastic ice cream cone, she actually apologizes to Vince for not listening to him. We’re then reminded why we like Vince as he rhetorically muses, “I wonder where she gets it from?”, and Caitríona giggles and flirts with his bicep and so on, because down the road she will be able to use that line in her memoirs as justification for why she had to murder him.

Mo and John Joe run into Colm, and she invites him to join them at the pub tonight for a drink, which we hope means that poison she ordered from Amazon has finally arrived. She wanders off and John Joe warns Colm that he’s barking up the wrong tree with Mo, what with her not being a complete imbecile and all, but he replies that now that he’s out of Anto’s clutches, he’ll have plenty of time to focus on seducing Mo. Eww.

Micheál returns home from the mime school where he works and finds the house empty, though it’s clear Laoise has been preparing it for a big evening, with wine and candles and a giant purple bag from a store called “Elegant Undies,” which I swear I’m not making up. She probably could’ve gotten a good price on those barely-worn leopardskin briefs O’Shea gave Eric last episode. Micheál sees all this and looks very pleased with himself, and then calls Peatsaí, who I guess still exists, and asks him if he’ll stay late to close the spaghetti farm where they work. Of course Peatsaí refuses, because he’s an arsehole, so Micheál has to come up with a Plan B, which I hope involves him walking up and down the streets of town stark naked while singing Laoise’s name to the tune of “Mandy.”

At the café, Colm does a hilariously inept job of “discreetly” passing Seán an envelope containing €5000. He might as well just announce loudly, “I know it looks like I am secretly passing Seán a giant envelope full of cash under the table, but I’m actually grabbing his penis!” He explains that it’s the proceeds from his caper with Andy years ago before he landed in prison, and that he wants Seán to use the money to pay off King Kong a little at a time, and also give some to his awful wife, Annette. I suppose this scene is here to try to give Colm some redeeming qualities so we won’t keep vomiting with rage at the thought of him with Mo, but it’s far too late for that. Fix him up with Berni, no problem, but not our Mo. She deserves someone “Evan or better” on the Ros na Rún local bachelor scale.

We see Micheál putting a sign on the door of the door store where he works saying they’re closed for the day to unforeseen shagging circumstances. He has surprisingly good handwriting, unlike that note Réailtín left him the other week when she was pulling a sickie that was written in letters 12 inches tall.

Meanwhile, Eric arrives early to Laoise’s for their date, or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays, and they immediately start making out in the middle of the living room. I can’t judge, because I’m always a little turned on when I go to IKEA, too.

Micheál arrives at the pub for a brandy, to oil up the old cogs and springs, I suppose, and John Joe starts smirking about him and Laoise. He acts as if this is 6th grade and Micheál’s going to have to hide his spontaneous erection behind his algebra book. Tadhg takes this opportunity to point out that given how Laoise’s been jumping from man to man, it was only a matter of time before she landed on Micheál. It does feel like a bit of a “Do not pass Go, do not collect $200” situation for her. John Joe adds that Micheál didn’t exactly ask Laoise out, but instead asked her to move in with him, which elicits mixed responses from the assembled barflies. Colm wanders in and starts flirting grossly with Mo, something we never get brain-meltingly tired of seeing, but then Dull Tony arrives, and Mo really is in the worst love triangle ever. I’m including “Tiarnán and Bobbi-Lee’s two breasts” in that competition. Colm slinks off to the bar to commiserate with John Joe, because they are the only two in this scene who can understand what the other is saying, and in a very kind gesture, John Joe announces that he hopes Tony’s pint gives him diarrhea. I’m not sure Tony is exciting enough for something as dramatic as diarrhea, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Micheál arrives home to sex Laoise up, but finds that Eric has already done so. Half their clothes are on the floor and the other half are in various stages of “on them,” and there is zipping happening, and Laoise is mortified, Micheál is stunned, and Eric basically looks like he’s ready for another go, and wouldn’t be totally averse to Micheál sticking around to watch or whatever. Laoise tries to sputter excuses, but Micheál silences her with a hand gesture like a traffic cop and then wanders away, shaking his head. It’s really a shame he didn’t walk in about 5 minutes ago.

Back at the B&B, Adam tells Fia they need to talk, and we’re as surprised as she is when he bluntly announces that he’s breaking up with her. It’s a good thing her Gustav Klimt jacket has a big fluffy hood on it, because she may get whiplash from all the back and forthing with him today. He says it’s all become too difficult and that he’s too young for this, plus Máire is complete horror, but she responds that it was only a week ago that he said he loved her. I’m assuming she means for the first time, and not that he only tells her he loves her once a week, at the end of Antiques Roadshow. She can’t believe that just this morning he invited her to go to Spain as a family, and now he’s breaking up with her, and she asks if it’s because of Liam Óg, and this is all heartbreaking for various reasons.

He insists it’s nothing to do with Liam Óg, and just then Máire arrives home, which you can tell Adam thinks is exactly what this nightmare was lacking. Fia falls into Máire’s arms and saysthat Adam’s just dumped her. Máire pats her back and says it’s for the best for both of them, and Fia angrily asks if she knew he was going to break up with her. Well, if Adam’s going down, at least Máire’s going down with him. The three of them argue for a while, and Adam finally tells Fia he can’t be with her because … he can’t finish the sentence, so Máire jumps in and finishes it for him: “Because Adam is gay.” Adam’s face crumples as he looks desperately at Fia, who’s stunned, and Pádraig better be grateful he’s not here for the slaughter, because it’s all going down today!