Ireland's Fittest Family review: Enjoyable first instalment of our very own Squid Game
Mairead Ronan, centre, and the four coaches from Ireland's Fittest Family.
It’s Halloween night and I flick on the TV. A young girl crashes through a misty forest, her breath coming fast, terror in her eyes as she senses, rather than sees, her pursuers. Up ahead, a crazed man with demented eyes and a terrifying accent threatens her family if she doesn’t keep going.
If she knew what was coming next, that she would be hunted through rat tunnels and plunged into freezing water, that she would be tortured, abused, all for the entertainment of unseen voyeurs, would she keep going? The girl slumps to the damp ground where insects scuttle and dark things grow, while identical twins with red hair stare in silence.
Have I happened upon a creepy horror movie, or a new episode of Black Mirror maybe? No! It’s this year’s Ireland Fittest Family, our very own state-sanctioned Squid Game.
Davy, Derval, Donncha and Anna are back, eyeing each other up in the bogs of Kilruddery. The four judges are in great form tonight, joshing and jostling, playfully ribbing Davy for his win last year. Meanwhile, biggest loser Anna slow-mo's through the pine trees, morphing into a real-life Pleading Face emoji every time she says a piece to camera about it being her turn to triumph.
The show starts with 16 clans battling it out in the forest over four weeks. Eight will qualify for the two quarter-finals at the lake, six of them will continue to the semi-finals in the swamp, and the four final families will mash it out in the last session on the mountain.
Tonight we have the Lehanes from Cork, the Dublin Bissetts and the Greenans from Cavan qualifying. I’m gutted the McCarthys from Cork missed out, and not just because they had the coolest name and county, but because they rocked up with their very own Paul Mescal lookeylikey, chain and all.
Overall, a great kick-off to the series, I can’t wait for next week.
(Ps The scariest thing of all this Hallow’s Eve was Mairead Ronan’s wardrobe. With her high waist denim shorts, docs and black denim jacket, could this mean the 1990s are back in fashion? The horror.)
