Conversations With Friends recap: Slowburn frustrations for all involved

Alison Oliver is great again, but episodes nine and ten of Conversations With Friends required plenty of patience

Thu, 16 Jun, 2022 - 08:08

Sometimes while watching Conversations With Friends, it feels like I’ve fallen into a screen-induced wormhole where the laws of time and physics mean nothing. NOTHING. In real-time, it’s a half-hour, but going by my Theory of Drawnoutedness (patent pending) and my wax regrowth, episode nine uses up three weeks’ worth of my lifeforce. Tectonic plates move faster.

I don’t want to be a smart alec about it though, because once again Cork actress Alison Oliver turns in a nuanced performance, as her character Frances spends most of this instalment stupified by pain — physically from her period and emotionally tortured over Nick.

After she faints on campus, Bobbi rescues her in the rain — a bit of foreshadowing here which I’ll loop back to, but really, the lead swooning in the downpour into her ex’s arms? I was half expecting to spot Hugh Grant in a see-through shirt going into the Arts building.

Bobbi gets Frances home, undresses her while having a deep and meaningful about their break up, runs her a bath, they look at each other’s lips a lot... and then, in a surprise move, Bobbi rings Nick. Hells bells, I didn’t see that one coming.

The half man-half fringe with a side of stubble lands over, and reveals like a vinyl record on 16rpm (Note for Millennials and Gen-Zs: that means very slow), he’s told Melissa everything, including he wants to keep seeing Frances.

“I know I’m not a great person,” says he. “But I love you.” Well!

Jemima Kirke as Melissa in Conversations With Friends.

Frances is only delighted, like the sloth who got the cream, but she did pass out in a puddle today Nick, so she needs her rest. “Let’s just be happy from now on,” says Nick The Married as he tucks her in with a satisfied sigh. Give me strength. I know I’ve mentioned ballsacks with abandon before in this column, but his should really be snipped off.

Episode ten kicks off with Melissa emailing Frances to meet. Ooh, I’m leaning in now. She makes her tea and lets Frances know when Nick was depressed she had an affair with his best friend. Can this be the spin-off series, please?

Joe Alwyn in Conversations With Friends.

Melissa in her cable-knit sweaters having sexy-time with Nick’s buddy, who I imagine as a part-time private detective, full-time lover as they join forces to catch a serial killer targetting personal essayists. (Feel free to call me, Netflix.)

Anyway, Melissa is trying to make us understand why a stone-cold fox like herself would put up with this dude openly cheating on her. It’s because apparently, his happiness is all she wants, and he’s happy with Frances. “I don’t know, maybe, we should all have…”

Oh my GOD, what, Melissa? A double cowgirl? A duel to the death? A trip to Specsavers?? No, it’s dinner, like they’re Parisian dandies instead of the repressed descendants of potato farmers that they are. Of course, Bobbi is invited - she wouldn’t miss this caper, too many sweet opportunities for her pithy bon mots.

Frances flabbergasts me, not with her dinner party repartee, but her choice of outfit. A black polo neck and a manky cardi. Glam it up, girlfriend, show us some clavicle.

Conversations With Friends: Sasha Lane and Alison Oliver.

After dinner, Nick and Bobbi play MarioKart while Melissa, tells Frances her dad was an alcoholic just like hers. Speaking of dads, Frances’ father stopped paying money into her account, and left her a worrying voicemail saying, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Bobbi’s father isn’t handling his divorce well. What have I missed? Another very unappealing sex scene where Frances and Nick talk into each other’s open mouths, Frances gets her short story published and, oh yeah, that foreshadowing works out with Frances and Bobbi wearing the face off each other outside the pub. Things are speeding up at last, just in time for next week’s final instalments.