It Happened One Night

S01E03

The boys leave, passing the booth where Nathan and Donna are sitting with Hazel and Bernard, and Nathan quickly jumps up and says that they need to go. He asks Hazel where Vince goes on Saturday night, and she tells him that Saturday night he'll be at Babylon. Nathan says he might go there, as if he goes there all the time. Bernard asks him if he's got a membership, and Nathan looks surprised. Bernard takes a card out of his wallet and hands it to Nathan, telling him that if he's asked, his name is Bernard Thomas. At Babylon, Nathan's card is scanned, and the security guy asks him what his name is. "Bernard Thomas," Nathan replies. "Date of birth 1946? Looking good, Bernard," the man says, and asks him to pay the £8 admission fee. Once inside the cavernous club, Donna and Nathan proceed down the stairs in jaw-dropping awe of the place. What a couple of sophisticates. As a woman slaps "shag tags" on their chests, Nathan is already searching the room for any sign of Stuart, and spots him dancing with Vince and the rest of the boys. We're then treated to an aerial pan of the stalls of the men's loo, where various couples are kissing...and stuff. Vince and Stuart are snorting coke off the back of the toilet, and Vince starts talking about how Mickey Blake, the bloke who got him the gear, can get anything. Remember when I said Vince would say or do something totally lame before long? This is it, boys and girls. "And he got me episode three of Planet of the Daleks -- in colour. The BBC's only got that in black and white, but Mickey Blake, you just have to ask. He said he could get me episode four of The Tenth Planet. Now that's a classic. No one's seen it since 1966!" he exclaims, waving his hands around and looking like he just might shoot his load right there. Stuart smiles and tells him, "There are no words for how sad you are." Word up, yo. Back in the main part of the club, Nathan is informed that Babylon clubber 373 has spotted his shag tag and would like to buy him a drink. Donna convinces Nathan that he should go find the guy, because he might be closer to their age and a better catch than Stuart. So Nathan walks around, looking for a guy wearing shag tag 373, and eventually spots an orca-like blob who is a walking fashion faux pas, complete with a figure-enhancing Hawaiian shirt. He stands up and waves at Nathan, who quickly retreats back to the balcony where Donna is waiting. He points out 373 to her, and they both collapse with laughter. Meanwhile, Alexander is looking frantically for Lee, who he eventually discovers in one of the club's other rooms, snogging another guy. A look of disbelief and disgust comes over Alexander's face. He then phones Stuart's workmate Sandra, who is at that moment riding some guy like she's in the Queen's race at Ascot. "YES?!" she barks down the phone. "What's Japanese for slut?" asks Alexander. He then joins his friends on the balcony that overlooks the dance floor, muttering, "Bastard fucking Jap. I'm taking out economic sanctions, me. That Yohji [Yamamoto] suit is going straight back!" No one notices his offensive use of the world "Jap," possibly because Stuart's just spotted his elusive prey, the hot guy from the first club, dancing on the floor below them. At the same time, Vince spots Nathan and Donna and comments that the boy really is stalking him. "This is getting creeee-py," he says, to which Phil replies, "Because he goes to Babylon on Saturday night? Yeah, that's so unusual."

Vince, ever the obedient disciple, is dropping off little Alfred at Romey and Lisa's house, while talking to Stuart on his cell phone and telling him where to find things in Stuart's. Own. House. (I've decided I'm not going to comment on Vince's lack of a backbone anymore, because I've run out of creative ways to say that he's a slave to Stuart's self-obsession. So it's up to you, dear reader, to decide whether Vince has any dignity left. Hmm, I wonder.) Lisa asks him whether Stuart even spent any time with his son, and tells Vince that he's more of a father than Stuart is, loud enough that Stuart can hear her down the phone line. You know, I'm starting to really like Lisa.

Back at Stuart's flat, Phil is doing tequila slammers with Alexander and Dane, while Lee is on the phone with Sandra, whom Stuart has called into work on a Saturday to arrange for a Japanese translator to talk to Lee. The interpreter tells Sandra -- who tells Stuart -- that Lee is a prostitute and wants Alexander to pay him for sex. Stuart instead tells Alexander that Lee's oft-repeated mantra, which really means "money," is his expression of being completely in love with Alexander. Stuart's a jerk? Ho and, indeed, hum. I hope this is on the quiz at the end, because I'm sure we'll all pass with flying colours.

Nathan and Donna are still in the cab, which drives past Romey as she takes Alfred for a stroll in his pram. Nathan spots her and has the driver pull over, while Donna tells him that since he's Stuart's boyfriend and Stuart is Alfred's father, that makes Nathan a stepfather. Nathan, for not the first or the last time, looks truly miserable. While Vince and the others watch a well-worn videotape of Princess Diana's funeral at Stuart's, Nathan tells Donna that Stuart actually dumped him. Donna cheers him up with a little joke like the good friend she is, someone of whom Nathan is clearly undeserving. She encourages him to go out to Canal Street again, telling him that he's sure to find another guy. Donna then decides to come along, but says, "I'm not pretending to be lesbo, mind. I saw Kate Moss on that advert -- I felt nothing." Nathan, once again ignoring anything not pertaining to himself or Stuart, tells her, "He'll be there, laughing."

Which he is, at dinner with Vince, Dane, Alexander and Phil. They're talking about trajectory physics. Actually, they're talking about how to make one's ejaculate shoot over one's shoulder, but this is a family website, so I thought I'd clean the conversation up a bit. Vince, wrecking my plans, then tells the group that he read in Attitude that you can make your penis larger by losing weight. "For every thirty pounds you lose, you gain an inch." At that moment, the waiter asks them if anyone would care for dessert. With unison normally only seen in the context of a Moonie wedding ceremony (TM John Kusch), they all answer resoundingly in the negative. Walking out of the restaurant, Alexander says, "I snogged a woman once. It was like kissing the Body Shop." Vince, meanwhile, is telling Phil how bad he feels that Alexander came home with a boyfriend, because he really wanted to set the two of them up. Phil enquires about Dane, but then says that Dane's all fit and skinny, while he's "eating for two." Phil isn't skinny, but he's by no means huge. I don't even think he's as fat as Matthew Perry's gotten in the past several months, but whatever. Phil asks Vince if he would shag Stuart, and (predictably) Vince says he absolutely would not, because they'd never be able to look each other in the eye ever again. "Oh, and this way," Phil observes, "you get to look at him all the time."

Nathan and Donna have arrived on the scene, in another cab on Stuart's account, and Nathan tells her not to look if she sees guys kissing, not to look if she sees guys dressed up like women, and not to look if she sees Stuart. Nathan apparently doesn't know that he's only the boss of the applesauce. Inside the smallish club, Stuart and his friends are ogling a young man standing at the bar in a sweaty undershirt and too much gel in his hair. "I'd stick me head up his arse and wear him like a hat," Alexander quips. We're then provided with a momentary subtitle as Lee comments, "I'd give him one," in Japanese. Stuart, ever-confident, says, "Right, that's my night sorted. What are you lot gonna do?" And you know that he's going to get his way, don't you?

Vince's mother, Hazel, is at the club with Bernard and has been spotted by Nathan just as Donna is telling him that Stuart is short and not that good-looking, and that she thinks he can do much better. All but ignoring her (for a change), Nathan swoops down on Hazel and says hello. "Who the fuck are you?" she asks in a lilting, happy tone of voice. Nathan tries to explain how he knows Vince, and Hazel tells him to either sit down at their table or move, because he's blocking the view. Motioning towards the guy Stuart's set his sights on, she says, "I've got £10 on Stuart pulling that bloke before closing." Nathan doesn't look pleased. On the other side of the club, all the boys are still staring at the hot guy, and Phil is telling Vince that he should try to chat him up. Vince is dismissive of this suggestion, and Phil tells him that Stuart "doesn't have the copyright on shagging." Well, I don't know about that, but he sure does defend the copyright vigorously enough. Vince then notices that Nathan and Donna are sitting at his mother's table, and points this out to Stuart. "Nothing to do with me," he says, and Vince is clearly annoyed. "You shag him and he ends up stalking me." Stuart tells Vince to leave Nathan alone, and says he's "all right." Vince looks incredulous. "'All right'? He's 'all right'?!" While the two of them have been discussing Nathan, the object of their lust has moved from his spot at the bar and disappeared out of sight. Stuart tells Vince that the bungled surveillance is his fault, surprising no one. Vince then goes to the bar to get another round of drinks, and who should be standing beside him but the girl his workmate Marcie is trying to set him up with, Rosalie Cotter. She recognizes Vince and says that she's there with a friend who dragged her out to see Canal Street, and asks him what he's doing there. Vince, clearly flustered, says it's his first time there, and that he's shocked by all that's going on around him. Rosalie warns him that all the "pretty boys" will try to turn him gay, and Vince replies that yes, he's really sick of that. Rosalie asks Vince to have a drink with her, but he says he's got to leave. She kisses him on the cheek and he immediately dashes back to his friends, and tells Stuart who she is. "It's that bloody Rosalie. This place is getting so straight!" he says in an agitated voice. Stuart smiles at him, then walks over to Rosalie and introduces himself as Vince's friend. He then whispers in her ear that Vince "really likes [her]," which she looks elated to hear. Vince observes this, and looks like he'd love to kill Stuart. Be our guest, love. Despite myself, I do feel sorry for Vince. Not to worry, though, as I'm sure he'll say or do something totally lame any minute now.

Just then, Alexander spots another, hotter guy on the dance floor, with whom Stuart is immediately fixated. As Nathan and Donna and everyone else watches, Stuart makes his way down the stairs to the dance floor. He waltzes up to the first guy and kisses him on the cheek. Stuart then turns and faces the other, hotter guy and beckons him to join them, to a chorus of, "He's not! He can't! He can!" from his friends. Donna says to Nathan in disbelief, "He's not having them both...?" Nathan, who is smiling at her as if she's a retarded child, tells her, "You don't understand." Hey, Nathan, how about you stop trying to come over like you've got the book of secrets to all things gay and grown-up? And Donna, please feel free to stuff your nap-ass ponytail in Nathan's mouth, because someone needs to remind him that he only lost his arse cherry, like, five minutes ago. Thanks. Stuart is still standing with his two men on the dance floor, in between them with his arms draped around their shoulders. He kisses them both, then looks up at Vince, who is gazing down at him lovingly, adoringly, and with envy. "What does he say to them?" someone asks, and Vince replies, "If we only knew that. If we knew the magic words...But he says them for all of us." The magic word you need to learn, Vince, is "No." Or perhaps the phrase "Stuart, fuck off" would be better. Either way, let's knock it off with the Stuart worship.

Outside the club, Nathan is looking dejected and sad, just for a change of pace. Donna tells him that Stuart will cop off with anyone, and he's bound to be diseased or something, so Nathan is really better off without him. "You saw him," Nathan says. "He's the best. I've had the best." Oy.

Phil is hailing a cab home when a guy comes running up to the car. Thinking he was getting in someone else's ride home, Phil apologises. The guy, dressed in a navy blue and red Adidas top and a -- choke! -- jean jacket, tells Phil that he saw him in Babylon, and suggest they go halves on the taxi. Phil smiles and accepts.

Elsewhere, Vince has brought home a creepy, Steve Buscemi-looking guy with a moustache. Ick. The man, Jonathan, tells Vince that he works for the BBC, and Vince immediately gets a chubby. He asks what he does, and Jonathan says that he's a director on The Holiday Programme and just spent a week in Brazil filming some loser from Casualty. "Fantastic! Brilliant! OH my God!" Vince responds. If it was anyone else, you'd think his reaction was not without irony, but the look on Vince's face tells us that he is deeply impressed. That, and desperate.

Alexander and Dane, meanwhile, are following a heavily pierced man in a black leather jacket (Spike) up the steps of a dump called the Dolphin Hotel. "Stop your moaning," Alexander hisses at Dane in a loud whisper. "If you fancy a threesome at this time of night, you can't start getting choosy about which three!" He warns Dane not to touch him, and Dane replies that he doesn't even want Alexander looking at him. "I have to look, or I might end up sucking the wrong cock. And don't you suck mine!" Alexander tells him. "I've no intention," Dane says dryly. As they enter Spike's living quarters, we hear two heavy locks being put in place, causing Alexander and Dane to glance at each other anxiously. Against the wall, there's an aquarium with a very large snake inside it. Spike stands in the doorway, and Alexander giggles nervously and in his high-pitched voice utters, "Nice!"

Phil and the stranger he's just brought home (yes, you do sense a theme running through this series) are exchanging pleasantries, and Phil is visibly on edge. The guy, Harvey, seems like he could be trouble, especially when he holds up a small bag of white powder and asks Phil, "Do you mind? It's good stuff." Phil tells him he doesn't mind, but he obviously does. Sensing that Phil can be talked into almost anything, Harvey then asks if he can spend the night. Permission is granted, and Phil smiles weakly. It's funny, because I never took Phil to be the sort that's easily steamrolled, but this show does seem quite eager to portray gay men as willing to do anything for a shag. I don't know how I would feel about that if I were a gay man, but as I haven't heard any outcry about it from anyone, maybe it's just me.

Vince and Jonathan are sitting, with Vince looking down while Jonathan stares at him intently, when Jonathan suddenly grabs Vince and kisses him. He then laughs nervously and says he has to pee, and retreats to the loo. Vince uses this opportunity to -- what else? -- phone Stuart. As he talks into Stuart's answerphone about this nice guy who works for the BBC and has actually met Ruby Wax, Stuart is writhing around on his bed with the two men from the club. Stuart, not being one to let such a Kodak moment go unrecorded, has a video camera set up to capture the orgy on film. In other news, no one in the audience is very shocked, including your intrepid recapper. In fact, I think the only thing that could surprise me at this point would be if Ricky Martin emerged from the closet, bent over in front of Stuart and begging to be buggered. Even then, it would only warrant a raised eyebrow.

Back at the Dolphin Hotel, Spike is playing with his (pet) snake and telling his captive audience of Alexander and Dane about his job as an undertaker. Specifically, he's telling them about how dead people's eyes always spring open, but since the family obviously would be disturbed by such a sight, the corpses must be fitted with contact lenses which have spikes on the end, in order to keep their eyes closed. Yum. "Right," he says, getting up. "I'll wash me knob." As he closes the bathroom door, Dane says to Alexander, "He's [Britain's most prolific sexual torturer and serial killer] Fred West!"

Speaking of sexual torture, Jonathan -- nasty moustache and all -- is on top of Vince and kissing him passionately. Vince tries to pull Jonathan's leather(ette) trousers down, but is repeatedly rebuffed. Finally, Jonathan tells Vince that he needs to warn him. He explains that, if Vince should ever find himself in Brazil, he would be best advised to sit on a towel, because there are parasites on the beaches that live in the sand and burrow themselves into you. "I mean, you can kill them with this ointment," he says, "but it takes a while." Vince, being less astute than the viewer, still doesn't get it. "So...?" he asks. "So I've got Brazilian beach parasites living in my arse," Jonathan confesses. Talk about killing the mood. After a moment's silence, Jonathan wonders aloud if he should call a taxi.

While Spike does what we can only assume is pre-operative sanitation in the bathroom, Alexander and Dane are trying to pry open all of the windows and desperately searching for an escape route, despite the fact that they're two floors up from the ground. Jeez, who would have guessed that going home with a complete stranger called Spike -- an undertaker with a piercing in every part of his body -- would be less than a good idea? You can't blame the poor lads, surely. Spike emerges from the bathroom and tells the boys, "Let's get on with it. I'm burying a bride and groom at ten." Dane says that he needs to use the bathroom, and Spike advises him to hurry up. Once in the loo, Dane opens up the window and crawls outside. In the front room, Spike is standing before a kneeling Alexander and unzipping his trousers. Alexander spots Dane outside the window, shimmying his way across the building. Dane is trying to tell Alexander to go through the bathroom window, but Alexander's attention is captured by Spike's crotch. He does a double take, then grabs Spike by the arse and pulls him toward his face. Dane promptly loses his grip and falls two floors to the ground below him. It's about time somebody on this show got physically injured; I only wish it was someone who really got on my nerves.

Vince, watching porn and sulking -- something we're quite sure is a time-honoured tradition in his home -- is talking to Stuart's answering machine, moaning about how men are bastards and he had thought that Jonathan could be "the One." Um, yah. While Vince complains and just generally gets on everyone's nerves, Stuart and his two gentleman friends are draped across each other, naked as the day they were born, as they watch the footage of their threesome. "Anyway, I bet you're having a good time," Vince says into Stuart's answerphone before turning over and going to sleep. Quite right, and a risky bet that was, Vince.

At Phil's, Dodgy Harvey is setting up lines of white powder on the coffee table (glass, of course), and has Phil snort one. Phil's obviously not a seasoned drug-taker, which would have been apparent even if he hadn't gotten up and almost fallen over about three times on his way to the kitchen. As he tries to get a glass of water, Phil is sweating profusely and cannot even hold himself up against the kitchen counter. Harvey laughs and reassures him that it's only a reaction to his first time, but Phil quickly collapses on the floor and flops around like Charlie Tuna, while Harvey shouts, "What the fuck are you doing?" at him. Uh, I think it's called buying the farm. Phil's body eventually goes very still, and he's not blinking so you know he's dead. Harvey grabs his jean jacket and moves to leave, then thinks again and empties Phil's wallet of all its cash before he goes. What a prince.

The day, Stuart and Vince are having a meal with Alexander and Dane, whose arm is sporting a stylish sling. Alexander is relating the whole sordid tale of his night with the undertaker and gasps, "I swear, a cock like a baby's arm! He sprained his wrist," he says, gesturing toward Dane, "I sprained me arse!" As his friends laugh, we see Phil still lying on his kitchen floor, daylight streaming in through the curtains. A few days later, Vince's cell phone rings. Seeing Phil's number on the display, he turns from his friends and answers, "Phillip Delaney, where the fuck have you been?" in a playful manner. "Is that Vince?" asks a female voice. We see an older woman sitting in Phil's front room while a female police officer goes through the kitchen. Vince is confused, and the woman tells him that she's Phil's mother. He asks her if something's wrong, and she says the police told her "it happened days ago." Vince goes very pale as he absorbs what she's telling him, and Stuart picks a very inappropriate moment to saunter up to him and plant a big, wet kiss on his cheek. Over and out (no pun intended).