Last Tango in Halifax – Don’t tell me something you’re gonna regret.

Last Tango in Halifax: 2x05.

I don’t know why but whenever I write a review of something, I try to find themes in the episode that will at least provide me with a first sentence or even paragraph, and it’s never really worked too well with Last Tango in Halifax, even though the separate stories, whatever they may be, never give the impression of not being connected. It’s just that in terms of emotions, this show is so honest and true, and that truthfulness is the connective thread between whatever happens to Celia, Alan, Gillian and Caroline, and the people surrounding them. Family, and the struggle to find a place in it, or to extend it, or to break free from harmful previous bonds, is what the show is about, amongst other things – or maybe, more succinctly, what family means, beyond the biological bond.

As far as themes go, the fifth episode of the now nearly finished second season seems to have a thread running through it. All of these characters carry past wounds around with them, and it determines how they approach new relationships – Caroline opened up to Kate about how her mother’s unhappy marriage affected her emotional ability to be in a romantic relationship, Celia herself repeatedly thinks about what life would have been like if she had married Alan when she was young rather than Kenneth, Gillian is carrying a dark secret around with her (the extent of which is revealed in this episode) that seems to colour everything that she does, and Alan carried part of this secret as well, entirely alone, until he chose to tell Celia. Each of these characters has made choices about whom to share their burden with; Caroline knows how unhappy her mother’s marriage was, Alan was complicit in part of the cover-up of Eddie’s death, Gillian told Alan about what she might have done, had an opportunity to end her unhappiness arrived.

But some secrets haven’t been revealed at all, to anyone. Three months after the last episode, the preparations for the wedding haven’t really advanced, and after some time, Gillian and Caroline realize that the reason isn’t the organisational complications related to Alan’s brother Ted, and his thirteen grand-children, who live in New Zealand, but Celia’s reluctance to invite her sister Muriel to the wedding. Knowing that her father is upset about things not moving along more quickly, Gillian decides to intervene, and signs herself and Caroline up for the task of organising the wedding – and Caroline herself accidentally escalates the situation with Muriel, when she calls her and realizes too late that Celia hasn’t spoken to her yet, that she’s not even heard about Alan. Caroline knows the possible reason for why her mother and her aunt have fallen out years ago, since Celia, after the missed date with Alan and before she met Kenneth, used to go out with a man who later became Muriel’s husband, a fact that she never forgave her sister, even though he’s been dead for years. It doesn’t seem like a massive revelation, considering that Muriel is only introduced in this episode, and the tension between the sisters pales in the light of the more serious secret that is revealed in the episode, but it shows how long Celia is capable of holding a grudge. She never told anyone, Caroline only found out about it by accident, and doesn’t really know the extent of it, because she never asked. In a conversation with Alan, Celia reveals that she never told anyone apart from Caroline and him about her misery in her marriage to Kenneth either, because she “didn’t want folks knowing”, and the loneliness of it must have been a great part of the extent of her unhappiness.

And Celia has Alan now, she has that happy life that she didn’t have years ago, the one reliable and lovely man who isn’t like the others (and it’s quite lovely when she tells without telling her sister about Caroline being gay), and everyone does only care about her happiness with regards to the wedding; Caroline even goes so far as to take Gillian to the hotel where a really terrible thing happened to her, because it would be a lovely place to get married, and life has been throwing absurdities and ironies at her anyway. She goes into the process of planning her mother’s wedding after finding out that Kate is pregnant, and that she’s started “thinking about the future” now that twelve weeks have passed. It’s a horrible, formal conversation that takes place in her office, about how Kate, as a teacher, asks Caroline, the headmistress, about her future, what is possible in terms of employment, while the subtext in the scene speaks to all the lost opportunities and the lost intimacy between them. They speak to each other as strangers, formally, but Caroline’s face in the scene completely betrays her emotions, since this was supposed to be their future, and their family. It’s a heart-breaking moment, especially Caroline’s “I hope you know me better than that” - the terrifying idea that all their intimacy never meant anything because now Kate seems not to know her at all. She has to congratulate her as her boss for the successful pregnancy, rather than taking part in her joy as her partner.

Afterwards, she and Gillian go to the hotel where her and Kate’s break-up happened (because it struck her as a really nice place for a wedding, which must have been an awful and painful thought to have, amidst all the horror), and awfully ironically, Gillian points out to Caroline that everyone there must think that it’s supposed to be their wedding, which of course is exactly the kind of exposure and publicity Caroline feared when she booked those two rooms, except now it doesn’t seem to matter, it’s just another hilarious irony that life has thrown at her. They’re both drunk, and giggle, but the whole trip is meant to help both of them to deal with what’s happened – Caroline’s break-up with Kate, Gillian’s with Robbie, and the fact that Robbie has a new much younger girlfriend who is about to move in with him.

The episode starts out feeling much more light-hearted than the previous ones, in part because Alan and Gillian seem to get along well again, and Gillian seems so changed just through having the responsibility for “Calamity”; so her and Caroline’s trip to organize their parents’ wedding is light-hearted, lovely, even when they accidentally get so drunk that they have to get a taxi home. Their connection has always been surprising – a genuine exchange of feelings, but constantly and repeatedly ruined, mostly by Gillian’s transgressions. Sometimes it’s easier to tell the truth to someone who is still half a stranger rather than someone who knows you well. Caroline is more open and direct to Gillian about why her relationship with Kate fell apart than she’s been with anyone, and it’s almost like this is the first time she admits it to herself.

Caroline: I blew it with Kate. I really blew it. I only realize now how lovely it was, how precious. And I’ve tried to apologize but she won’t listen. I think she’s decided that I’m bad for her, and there’s nothing I can do, or say. I'm just in a box now with bad written on it. Well, not bad, just arrogant, inept, selfish, repressed, emotionally crippled.

And then of course, in the light of this confession, and asked why things with Robbie didn’t work out, Gillian makes her own, and it’s one of the most difficult moments this show has ever had. She tells Caroline that Eddie was abusive, that she “shed blood in every room in this house”, and that it wasn’t a suicide; like Alan suspected, and thought of her father knowing, seeing through her story, seems to be her worst fear, she killed him, and that’s why she and Robbie could never work – because she took the only family he had, even if it seemed like the only way out of an abusive relationship. She tells Caroline to lift a burden that she’s carried alone all those years, except Caroline isn’t the person she should be telling this (and she doesn't know why she told Caroline; because it was the answer to her question, because she couldn't bear to keep this secret anymore), because they are still, to some extent, strangers, regardless of how possible this confession seems with all the drinks and giggles they’ve shared – so the morning after, in the light of day, Gillian realizes what she’s done, and has no idea how to face the consequences. 

Random notes:

The episode does a good job of dealing with the twelve weeks that have passed; Caroline looks wistfully and sadly at the “For Sale” sign on her lawn as William is leaving – things are changing quickly – and John has been served with the divorce papers, making very clear that her break-up with Kate hasn’t changed the fact that she doesn’t want to get back with him (he’s been living with Judith, who sadly never quite sticks to her ideals).

Caroline and Celia's mirroring gestures in the drive-way scene (and their hug) are quite lovely. Sarah Lancashire and Anne Reid are perfect at playing mother and daughter - it's warm, but still conveying the sense that physical intimacy isn't a strong suit for either of them. 

Caroline: Proud of you.

William: And I’m proud of you.

He also calls Alan “Granddad”. It’s sad to see him go, but Lawrence learns an importance lesson about the value of having one reliable parent, even if he thinks that Caroline is boring (which, seriously, she isn’t).

Alan's friend (Calamity's other great-granddad) is thinking about moving into a house boat that looks like it's going to sink any minute. 

Celia (about how complicated organising the wedding is): Well one of them’s a vegetarian!

Oddest running joke of the season.

Cheryl: I love your jacket. I love the pattern. It’s really CLASSY.

Gillian: Right, Batman, what’s the plan?

It’s hard to work through John and Judith, because this is actually arguably (secretly) a close second to the other horrible revelation: that Judith is pregnant, and John is dealing with it awfully, trying to bully her into having an abortion, getting drunk with her rather than trying to help her to stop drinking.