After three series and nineteen episodes, we finally bade farewell to our favourite wee doofuses from a small corner of Northern Ireland this week, with the finale of Derry Girls across two episodes. So for quite possibly the last time, let’s get down to the craic…
In the first installment, ‘Halloween’, it’s time for the one night of the year when all of Derry is abuzz. And more so this year, as Fatboy Slim – with Norman Cook himself making a tongue in cheek cameo appearance – is playing St Columb’s Hall in the city centre.
The gang are getting tickets from a local record store, and Claire finds herself making awkward flirtations with the counter assistant Laurie (guest star Vanessa Ifediora), who Michelle is on good word is also a lezzie – just flirting enough for them to secure the last five tickets. But not, of course, before a standoff for said tickets between James and local thug Madstab (guest star Emmett J. Scanlan of Hollyoaks fame) which James handles how, well… how you might expect him to handle a situation like this…
Meanwhile over at the Quinn household, an interesting piece of mail drops through the letterbox. It would seem that Aunt Sarah has got herself engaged to Ciaran Healy (yes, the camera shop guy off the first series). Which is awkward when all she was asking for a Calypso after he picked her up from Dancercise class, rather than the ring he proposed to her with but took anyway. Also, she says, there’s an awkward clash on the date of their engagement party with the ABBA tribute act she’s booked to see in concert….
With James having ripped up the precious last five Fatboy Slim tickets in a panic, the gang minus Michelle are drowning their sorrows over a portion of chips in a local cafe, before discovering that Michelle has ended up on UTV lying her hole off, and has now managed to convince all of a fake story of James being beaten up by thugs on account of being English, to secure VIP tickets to Fatboy Slim.
The gang thus all excitedly get ready on the night round at the Quinns. The look: angels as inspired by Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet (although Ma Mary is convinced they’re swans). Claire’s dad Sean Devlin drives them in a trailer attached to his Mini through the Halloween parade in Derry city centre.
Meanwhile, with Aunt Sarah and Ma Mary magically otherwise unavailable to tell him as they’re getting their own Halloween costumes of habit hire from Sister Michael and other local nuns organised – a smoky eye will take at least an hour or two – it is left to Da Gerry (and Granda Joe in a Frankenstein mask) to deliver the bad news to Ciaran…
Although explaining it away doesn’t take much thankfully, when Aunt Sarah in her nun’s habit appears. It does make sense, says Ciaran. She was always a woman of strong faith.
With the gang now arrived at St Columb’s Hall, they’re ushered into the VIP area by MC Fifi, who says Fatboy Slim wants to meet all five of them before he goes on stage. In 10 minutes. Just one problem though; Claire is awol. The gang soon find her lezzie hunting for Laurie, who she knows has come dressed as a clown. Which one though, in a room of clowns is debatable. And it’s not long before the gang are furiously checking all clown masks. And then James finds one not with Laurie, but with Madstab the thug from the record store…
At which point his “crutches” are dispatched of, the jig is up on Michelle’s lie, and the gang are escorted out the gig in disgrace by security guys. But not before Claire comes face to face with Laurie, and they have their very own Juliet and Juliet moment…
But it’s the end of the episode where Lisa McGee delivers her trademark raw moment of pathos. Da Gerry’s waiting for the gang outside the steps of St Columb’s Hall. Claire’s dad Sean has been taken ill to the hospital with a brain aneurysm. Words alone can’t describe what happens next, but a GIF or two can…
ONE YEAR LATER…
1998. It is the week of Orla’s 18th birthday. She’s celebrating this by getting her ID card at the city hall, and dancing through the streets of Derry to Dario G’s “Sunchyme” on her Walkman.
We cut across shots of the gang; Michelle as a part time assistant at Dennis’ Wee Shop, Erin deep in reading of Hamlet, and perhaps most excitingly of all for Ma Mary, the purchase of a new microwave oven…
Claire meanwhile has moved with her mum Eileen to a new town and new school following her dad’s death. There’s a lot to get used to, she tells the girls over her hamburger phone. Before Erin points out she is basically 20 minutes down the road in Strabane…
But this is not the only change afoot. It is just days before all in Northern Ireland over the age of 18 will vote on The Good Friday Agreement – hence the title of the finale episode – and both young and old alike are having to dig deep and answer difficult questions about choices they have to make for the future of Derry and ultimately, their lives. Granda Joe is doing his best to explain it to the adults of the Quinn household, through the medium of a map and packets of Tayto crisps (what else?)
Meanwhile Erin’s got other things on her mind. She’s fuming about having to share her 18th birthday party with Orla, which means compromising on the theme of the bash (“Just do Literary Monkeys, girls,” says Aunt Sarah unhelpfully). And most of all because it is likely to be overshadowed not just by the Agreement referendum, but by – of all people – Jenny Joyce holding her 18th birthday party on the same night. Which sounds like the Oscars next to Erin and Orla’s party, who had her heart set on one of the Commitments singing at her bash. Jenny will have a minature pony and chocolate fountain and the cast of Riverdance, for God’s sake.
A thorny debate over Michelle’s brother being an IRA prisoner – and thus potentially released if the Agreement is passed – ends in her and Erin falling out in a big way, and not for the first time, all is not well amongst the gang. The day of Erin and Orla’s joint 18th party arrives – only for them to discover the Parish Hall has been double booked by Ma Mary with a First Holy Communion party…
Meanwhile, Michelle is committing an ultimate betrayal (with James in tow because, well, cousin etc) by going to Jenny Joyce’s swank bash across town. And he’s not exactly comfortable in a room with actual champagne, and pretending to like snow sports…
Sister Michael is also having to confront change. After Father Peter telling her the Bishop is thinking of making her retire from Our Lady Immaculate College, she downs a whiskey, comes to her senses and tells the Bishop where to stick his retirement. His response?
By now, Erin has had to retreat muddy suited (she climbed over the wall) to Jenny Joyce’s party (Orla somehow got there before her because their own party was getting boring). Michelle’s really not enjoying any of it. And she doesn’t know what’s right or wrong with her brother being potentially released from prison. She’s not even been allowed to see him in all the time he’s been locked up. So the gang all leave together, wandering the city walls as darkness falls…
Well, we say all the gang. Claire finally shows up having survived losing her bus timetable, the bus breaking down, and a load of old ladies offering their tights to the driver as replacement cam belts, and getting into Jenny Joyce’s party after the gang left. Where she promptly held them hostage with a blackout (smashing the fusebox with her rainbow umbrella) unless they bought the party over to the Parish Hall…
And so with The Commitment roaring into a lively version of “Nutbush City Limits”, the best night of the gang’s life gets underway. Particularly good moves from Da Gerry here!
Erin then decides to ask Granda Joe if he’s made sense of the Agreement referendum – and also try and make sense of it herself…
The following morning, all of Derry heads to make their vote on the Good Friday Agreement referendum, the strains of – what else – “Dreams” by The Cranberries – playing over footage of years of conflict, as we cut to shots of Erin, talking on James’ camera at the end of her party…
“No matter how scary it is, we have to move on and we have to grow up because things, well, they might just change for the better. So we have to be brave. And if our dreams get broken along the way, we have to make new ones from the pieces.”
Erin Quinn
THE PRESENT DAY. CHELSEA CLINTON’S HOUSE, NEW YORK…
And with that, we have left Free Derry, for now. Until next time – we’ll always be a Derry Girl. As Michelle once said, it’s a f***ing state of mind.
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