Season 4, Episode 6: “Wedding”

UK airdate: May 18th, 2007.

"I’m going to be one of those men women read about in their magazines!"

Mark and Sophie’s wedding day has finally arrived.

Special note: This episode shares a title with season 2's finale, if you keep track of that sort of thing.

Again, solid episode and in many ways the culmination of the first four years of the show.  Thinking about it now, this could have served as a series finale if the show hadn’t continued.  It takes care of the long-running Sophie plotline, and nicely cements Jez and Mark’s friendship.

Observations:

• This episode makes reference to Mark’s very first scene in the first episode, where he says he prefers brown toast to white.  Being the best friend that he is, Jez knows Mark’s preference.

• Reference here to Jez and Nancy’s marriage.  I can’t recall if that has ever been properly dealt with since, although Jez suggests at the end of this episode that he might divorce her.

• One of many episodes where Jez faces a life living without Mark.  This seems to come up more often in later seasons.

• This really has to be heard to be appreciated, but Super Hans’ puking noises are probably the best I’ve heard on TV.

• Jez drives his car to the wedding.  The car shows up now and again, but I’m only now wondering just how he pays for it.

• The woman at the coffee shop Mark proposes to is reading Jenkins’ Churchill.  I believe this is the last time the book shows up.

• Speaking about the woman in the coffee shop, DVD commentary will let you know that at one point she was supposed to have been either Mark’s school reunion friend Sally Slater, or the student he nearly hooks up with at Dartmouth.

• One of the very few instances where Mark shows any initiative, he tries to get hit by a car.

• Jez and Sophie’s kiss from earlier in the season is brought up by Jez as a way for Mark to get out of the wedding.

• Ever so briefly, a knowing look between Jez and Sophie’s mom, Penny, is exchanged.  Right after, she seems genuinely hurt to discover that he kissed Sophie.  I really thought they would make more of that little affair the two had but this is the last time it comes up.

• Sophie in her wedding dress, crying, is one of the series’ most memorable images.

• Sophie’s brother shows up for two seconds to throw rice at Mark.  There must be some deleted scenes with him somewhere.  Come to think of it, her dad (surely one of the better secondary characters) doesn’t say anything in this episode, either.

• Mark’s parents are in the background of a few shots, played by different actors than the ones we finally see in the later Christmas episode (if indeed standing in front of a camera can be considered “playing” a role on TV).  Obviously Bain and Armstrong wanted to save Mark’s parents for another episode, but it would have been very odd not to acknowledge them at his own wedding.

Mark's parents that we never see again

Quotes:

Super Hans, being kicked by Mark to get up: Alright, keep your wig on.

Jez, to a puking Super Hans: You said you were on the dry heaves!  That wasn’t a dry heave, that was a wettie!

Mark: Ugh, this isn’t how I imagined it: scrubbing my puke-stained wedding wear in a public toilet.

Mark, looking around in desperation at all the people at Sophie’s parents’ house: Oh god, look at all the wedding stuff.  Everyone’s getting ready for a wedding.

Jez: Well, you did basically arrange a wedding.

Jez, on how to stop the wedding: Personally, I think we should just leave a note and get the fuck out.

Jez, looking for a place to pee in the church: Let me piss in that prayer bucket.

Mark: “Prayer bucket”?  There’s no such thing.  That’s just a bucket.

Jez, protecting Mark from the rice throwers: Come on!  He got married, didn’t he?  Leave him alone!

UK stuff:

• Wikipedia says that Dr. Jonathan Miller “is a British theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humourist, and medical doctor [as well as a] … well-known television personality and familiar public intellectual in both Britain and the United States.”

• Mark: I actually find it quite comforting that our entire relationship can be reduced to an online speech template.  I mean, Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton couldn’t do that.

Once again, Wikipedia puts it very clearly: Kenneth Halliwell was a British actor, writer and collagist. He was the mentor, boyfriend and eventual murderer of playwright Joe Orton.

• Super Hans pukes in a public washroom beside a parking lot.  I cannot think of any such public facilities here outside of a park or a beach or something.

• Mark: Tell them I’m doing a Stephen Fry.  We’re in Brussels, I’m eating chips and mayonnaise… I’m on the edge!

This isn’t a UK thing really, since Stephen Fry is known in North America, but less well-known (at least to me) is that he suffers from bipolar disorder and has on at least two occasions tried to commit suicide.  

• Women wearing large, elaborate hats at weddings must be some UK thing, because you certainly don’t see it here.  

• Mark tells Sophie that getting married is serious business, “not applying for a Nectar card.”  A Nectar card is a loyalty card programme (or “scheme,” as they delightfully call things) in the UK.

War stuff:

• Mark: Nobody wanted to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, but in the end it probably saved more lives than if they hadn’t!

A rare Pacific theatre reference from Mark.

Season 4, Episode 5: "Holiday"

UK air date: May 11th, 2007

NA air date: Never

Jeremy offering Mark some turkey

The El Dude Brothers get up to all sorts of dead dog-related hijinks on Mark’s stag weekend.

I try not to say this too often, but this really is one of the better episodes - marred only by the outlandish 3rd act nonsense with the dead dog.  At any rate, Mark and Jeremy hanging out in an unusual location is a good setup for an episode, even without the stag party aspect.

Some thoughts:

• Jez taking Mark out for his stag is a nice reminder that these two aren’t strangers always after each other but are, in fact, good friends.

• Sophie and Mark are probably the most believable, dysfunctional couple on television.  Like, not in a “funny ha ha” sort of dysfunctional, but the kind you might encounter in real life.  You can almost see the rickety house of cards their weird relationship is made of.  She, the desperate, aging woman who knows she needs a man with ten times Mark’s energy; and Mark, the man in search of a respectable, presentable wife at all costs.

• It never truly dawned on me until watching this about twelve times, but Jez is trying to engineer a foursome with two sisters and Mark.  How bizarre.  Even more bizarre, it seems the girls were up for it.

• Roy Jenkins on Churchill again.  Mark’s still plugging away at that.

• Gerrard mentioned, back before he was a more prominent character.

• As I mentioned, the whole situation with the dog is just a tad too outlandish, particularly the part where they have to eat it.  I mean, it’s funny, but still at-odds with the tone of this series.  I really do think this is one of the strongest episodes of the show, but the ending does push things a tad.

• In his youth (we must assume), Jeremy was a paperboy for one of the Murdoch papers.

• Jez’ and Superhans’ band’s name this time: Various Artists (“Just to fuck over people with iPods.”)

• Pedge mentioned once again.  Evidently married.  Gave his wife an aggressive yeast infection after having sex with a hooker in Estonia.  Will we ever meet Pedge?

Quotes:

Jez: You know how depressed you are about being married?
Mark: Let’s not drag that out now.  ‘I’m looking forward to it.’  That’s the line.  Besides, it’s possible I might find a way out.

Jez: Look, no matter how unpalatable it may be, the fact is I’m your best friend and I know you don’t want to hear it, but I love you.  And in your own dried up, dessicated, weird and unfriendly way, you love me too.  

"No, I'm definitely not one of those."

Mark, haltingly, in couples’ counselling: Right, well, I thought maybe that Sophie might be one of those people who find it difficult - or even impossible - to attain… to achieve…

Sophie, without hesitating: No, I’m definitely not one of those.

Mark: Right…

Sophie, when prompted to open up about their difficulties in bed: Right, well… I’d say that often, Mark, you ejaculate quite a long time before I’ve had time to feel like I’ve started to enjoy our sex.

Mark, stunned: Uh huh.  Thanks for that, Soph.  I’ll make a note of that.

Captain Corrigan

Jez, disappointed the canal isn’t as exciting as he expected: Right, but this is just it - this is totally it?  There’s not going to be any waves, or… mad shit?

Mark: No.

Jez: Can I waterski off the back?
Mark: You’re very welcome to try!

Jez, on his time with Mark: This weekend is going to be one massive dry hump.  Maybe the pressure will build until we actually try to fuck each other.

(one gets the sense that Jeremy has done something exactly like this in the past)

Mark, after Jez forces him to the pub: Oh god, I wish I lived with the chess computer.  The chess computer wouldn’t make me do things.

Mark: Oh, god, it’ll be an orgy.  Great.  Disappoint three people instead of just one.

Jez: Just don’t think about the dead dog.  If I don’t think about it, there’s always a chance it didn’t happen.

Jez: Mark, if I just get rid of the dog corpse, there’s a chance I still might get laid here.

Just a couple of yardies.

UK Stuff:

• This episode has introduced me to the UK’s extensive canal system, converted now for tourist use.  Mark and Jez are on the Shropshire Union Canal.  I believe a specific town is mentioned by Aurora, but I couldn’t make it out.

• Upon entering the pub, Jez sings “this is your stag!” in the style of Laurie Johnson’s theme to “This is Your Life.”  You, too, would know this if you purchased the irresistible collection of mid-century production music, Music for TV Dinners.

• Where are my yards of ale?  We should have these here, although I think there’s a limit to how much beer can be served to one person at a time (which you’ll discover upon ordering a pitcher for yourself).

• Jeremy mentions Yardies, which I know isn’t remotely a big deal but I’ve come to view that as one of the more hilarious terms Peep Show has introduced to me.

• Alan Sugar comes up once again.

• Jeremy Clarkson is mentioned.  I should say that since I started this review blog many moons ago, Jeremy Clarkson has become well-known enough up here that I don’t really feel the need to explain who he is anymore.

• It’s become increasingly clear that people in the UK call “doing the dishes” the “washing up.”

• “The Great Egg Race” is mentioned.  A bit difficult for me to understand just what this show was, precisely, but Wikipedia will tell you that “the show featured teams creating [overly-complicated] mechanical creations in an attempt to solve a problem set at the start of the show. The series obtained its name from the initial challenge of making a device capable of transporting an egg the furthest possible distance without breaking it.”

• Everyone here knows what a "stag weekend" is, but "bachelor party" is overwhelmingly favoured.

WW2 Stuff:

- Mark, talking in his sleep: I’m not wearing them.  They’re Hitler’s boots.  I’m not wearing Hitler’s boots.