Conversations With Friends recap: Nick's sweater steals the show in final episodes
Alison Oliver and Joe Alwyn in Conversations With Friends, on RTÉ One.
The penultimate episode opens with Frances and Captain Birdseye in a bar having the bants. Sorry, it’s actually Frances and Knives Out era Chris Evans. No it’s not! It’s that rascal Nick, and in my humble opinion, that jumper deserves a meme, it’s gorge on him.
Frances veers off their tried and tested relationship routine of trembly eye flirting, monosyllabic battles of wit, culminating in squashy lovemaking and starts asking him about what happened last year, which to be fair, we all would love to know.
Joe Alwyn gives a beautiful performance here, explaining Nick’s slide into depression and being admitted to hospital for six weeks. He reveals how he argued with Melissa and she made a grand statement about not wanting kids. “And I was like, wow, f**k, I do.”
Then Melissa and him were living together but in separate rooms. “I was functioning but I felt pathetic, worthless, a waste of everyone’s time - and that’s where I was when I met you.”
Here’s where I psychically urge Frances to press her lips together into a non-threathening smile, calmly gather up her bag, coat, and sprint for the door.
But no, you can actually see her aorta swell with more amour. She tells him she thinks he’d be a great dad because “you have a kind nature and you’re very loving.”
It takes more than that, guys. Can he administer a suppository to a fever-addled child whilst simultaneously scraping vomit out of a Disney-themed duvet? Can he listen to the same song, sang out of tune in a weird British accent 437 times and clap with delight at the end?
Can he risk that fisherman jumper getting Petits Filous on it so it’ll forever smell like an unwell strawberry instead of Paco Rabanne Invictus? Anyway, off they go to meet Frances's mum, at Nick’s suggestion.
Paula nearly needs a change of underwear, she’s a right smitten kitten with the ‘famous’ Nick, who stays for two seconds to show off the jumper and then heads off… right into Melissa’s bed.
Yep, after all that baring of souls and flirting with Mammy, and while Frances is getting her endometriosis diagnosis and hearing it can lead to fertility issues (but Nick wants kids!), Nick rings to see how she gets on and tells her, OVER THE PHONE: “Melissa and I kissed. Actually we slept together.”
Bobbi piles on more emotional drama over the short story Frances wrote, saying she feels dehumanised and that she doesn’t want Frances in her life anymore and moves out.
Bloody hell, that Bobbi eh? Ooh, look at me, I inspire introverts to write publishable fiction; ooh, how dare you find me so fascinating and muse-like.
Now Nickless and friendless, Frances spirals downward, which we know because she's eating cake and self-harming, and then decides to challenge Melissa about showing Bobbi the story. Melissa, in one of the finest scenes of the series, veers from sneery sarcasm to tearful vulnerability to concern for Frances’s wellbeing.
Bobbi and Frances reconcile, in the Biblical sense, and we see a montage of them doing coupley, happy, sexy things.
Then, THEN, Nick rings her asking do they need wine. Yes, we are to believe he mistakenly scrolled to F instead of M in his phone.
I miss the start of their conversation because of the noise of my teeth gnashing, my hair being pulled out and the remote control snapping in my fist. They reminisce and she smiles, “Come and get me.” The End.
Em, can someone come and get me? I need recuperation in a safe place. I am broken from this show, with bald patches, a loose molar and a telly I can’t turn off.
Overall, Conversations With Friends was like my kids baking a cake. All the right ingredients are there, there's no reason I shouldn't enjoy it, but despite their best efforts, I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth and wishing it was just a bit better.
