They say all’s fair in love and war. Just ask the good (and bad) folks of Love/Hate. Donal O’Donoghue revisits the mean streets.
It’s weird seeing Christmas on TV in November. No, I don’t mean those hungry commercials trumpeting dolls that can wipe their own bottoms, or milk vans that can change into monsters. No, I mean the winter wonderland of Love/Hate, the Dublin gangster drama that suddenly went all Christmassy last night. Not that there was too much cheer or goodwill being doled out on the mean streets of the capital.
But it’s somewhat disconcerting when you’re following a drama and suddenly it’s like you’ve been bundled into a time travel machine and dropped into Toytown. It prompts all kinds of disturbing questions such as: is that real snow on the Dublin hills? Where did those Christmas decorations come from? And can we expect Santa to come down John Boy’s chimney?
Yes, in a way Christmas was a distraction from the main event: or maybe it was the reason for the main event, namely Rosie’s (Ruth Negga) return from London and her reunion with Darren (Robert Sheehan). That pretty couple were planning all sorts of things but mainly babies in a scene that the continuity announcer warned us about beforehand with the line that ‘some people’ might find it upsetting.
Rosie still carries a tiny torch for Stumpy. But Darren sez he knows nothing about who whacked the hoodlum and Rosie’s ma sez the dogs on the street know and Rosie sez ‘ah ma, I’m happy and I love him’ and we all sez, ‘oh-oh, we know where that one is going.
Speaking of other one-way tickets, there’s Tommy (Killian Scott) who looks so miserable you feel like telling him to cheer up that it will never happen. Except it probably will – what with John Boy (Aidan Gillen) using his Mrs as a drug mule and Tommy’s head being used by John Boy as a mallet. But that’s what you get for mixing business with pleasure Tommy boy and failing to whack Frano.
As for Frano (Peter Coonan), he should cut his hair – it’s getting dangerously close to mullet territory. And rather than make him look meaner he looks like someone who’s hoping to get a part in a boyband. But then he doesn’t have time to be thinking of matters tonsorial, with his Mrs after slitting her wrists and all. So now he’s going to get John Boy before John Boy gets him. Of course John Boy is hoping to get Frano first and so on …
Increasingly Nidge (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) is the man - not just as the ganglord-in-waiting but also as the star of Stuart Carolan’s urban drama. John Boy might do a meaner look, Darren a prettier look and Tommy the hang-dog look – but Nidge is jack of all looks, moving from comedy to tragedy to soap opera as moves between birth (his new baby boy) and death (ordering the hit on Frano).
Like King Lear Aidan Gillen is getting madder and madder, making us wonder how much madder can he get before he explodes with madness? Two more episodes I reckon – then it just might be curtains with Frano looking for his pound of flesh and Nidge shaping up to give him the nudge. Yep it’s all love and hate in a drama that swings between the good and bad.
Last night ended with the expected montage. But this one had a bit more bite and blood than recent endings. Rather than tough guys staring meaningfully into empty space, we had TV tough guys doing what TV tough guys should do as a swan and a young hoodlum both get it in the neck.
It’s beginning to look a lot like … well, a bloodbath.
Donal O'Donoghue
