Married...With Children

S01E06

In addition to Stuart, Vince and Cameron, all of Romey and Lisa's lesbian entourage -- and Lance, the "token heterosexual" -- are gathered in their front room drinking wine, while bad pop music ("Say What You Want" by Texas, for you masochists out there) plays. Lance explains that his visa is about to run out, but that if he and Romey get married and can convince the Home Office (which handles immigration issues in the UK) that they're actually in a proper relationship, then he can stay in Britain. "It's a certificate, it doesn't mean anything," Romey says. Stuart and Lisa both look worried, even though Lisa's acting like Stuart's the only one. "Of course you're worried, Stu," Lance says, getting overly familiar for not the first time. "I mean, there's Alfred..." he continues. "What about him?" Stuart asks, irked. "Well, obviously, I'll have to live here full-time; I've checked up on it, the Home Office can investigate whenever they want, so I'll be here, permanently. I've got no choice. But you're his father..." he says before Stuart interrupts him. "Who said I wasn't?" Stuart asks, obviously irritated. "You could be here just as much as me," Lance says, pausing for effect. "If you made the effort." Stuart just stares at Lance, realizing that the soft-spoken, overly-familiar gentle giant probably isn't the nice guy he seems to be. And I just stare in disbelief at the screen, incredulous that the QaF team have made me hate yet another character on this show. Gotta give 'em props for that, though.

In the kitchen, Cameron is scoffing some grapes and cheese off a cutting board when Lisa enters the room. "Sorry, do you mind?" he asks. Um, based on the bad pop music and freely-flowing alcohol, I'm thinking it's a party, Cameron. If there's food out on platters, it's probably for you, the guest. (See, it's not so hard to find fault with Cameron, is it?) Lisa tells him that he's an idiot. I mean, "Lisa tells him to help himself." "Guess you've known them ages, Stuart and Vince," Cameron asks her. "Far too long," Lisa replies, clearly tense. "Is it always like this? Vince running after him?" Cameron queries. "It's the greatest love story never told. Cameron, long after you're gone, he'll still have Vince," Lisa explains dryly. "Stuart's little acolyte, poor sod. If it's any consolation, Vince can wait all he likes -- that shag's never going to happen," she remarks caustically. Cameron doesn't say anything, but just holds her gaze. "Shit...you're with Vince," she says, finally twigging. "Yeah..." Cameron responds. "Shit...It's just...half the time he turns up with some shag, and...I mean, Stuart, there's always some bloke. I thought you were...shit!" There's no way Lisa's going to turn this around, no matter how good a lawyer she is. "Easy mistake," Cameron tells her calmly. Lisa, not actually getting the telepathic message from me that she's not going to make this all better, tries to spin it as a friend thing. "I mean, he loves him, they love each other. They're friends. I love my friends -- don't you? That's all it is. Friendship," she says brightly. "It's not as if I didn't know," Cameron replies. Lisa, giving up, tells him to help himself to the Cambazola in the back of the fridge and beats a hasty (but not hasty enough, alas) retreat from the kitchen. Back in the front room, champagne is being opened.

Vince, meanwhile, is standing at the customer service desk at work, picking leaflets out of their holders and looking very serious when Rosalie bounds up to him, asking how everything with his "new girlfriend" is going. Grasping for words, Vince utters, "Um, not so bad..." and Rosalie presses on, asking him if he's still seeing her, how long he's been seeing her and what her name is. Suddenly, Vince comes over all official and boss-like, and tells her quite firmly that he's with a customer. Rosalie apologizes and sheepishly retreats. Vince turns to the customer in question, Cameron, and says with an absolutely straight face, "There's all sorts of benefits with the club card, sir. Save up the points and you can get air miles, weekend breaks --" Cameron cuts him off and enquires, "Are any of the benefits in-store?" Vince, keeping up with the game, asks him what he had in mind. "Well, Mr -- uh -- Tyler," Cameron says, glancing at Vince's name badge, "I just thought there might be the chance to shag one of the staff." Vince is visibly enjoying this, but is also aware of his co-workers -- who don't know that he's gay -- milling about all around them. "I'll have to check the small print, but I'm sure that's possible," he tells Cameron reassuringly. "Exactly what sort of shag does sir have in mind?" Vince asks innocently. "Oh, I thought the full fuck," Cameron responds, grinning. "Very good, sir, and that's a special offer this week -- bonus points. I can have it delivered to your car in ten minutes," Vince says in his most professional manner. Out of nowhere, Sandra bounds up and shoves a cell phone in Vince's face. "This goes well beyond my job description," she tells him tersely. "And he didn't pay for it; if he says he did, he's lying. It's all on insurance," she continues, referring to the phone, before walking away and out of the store. Cameron, knowing full well that Stuart's on the other end of the mobile, looks a wee bit annoyed when it rings. Sure enough, Stu's racing down the road in his Jeep, and tells Vince that they're going out that night. "It's student night at Paradise; it's about time I had an educated shag," he says to Vince in his own inimitable style. "I can't, I'm busy," Vince protests, and Stuart tells him to bring Cameron along for the night, all the while honking his horn and shouting at another driver to fuck off. "Vince, you've got to! My parents are going mad, they're off their fucking heads!" Which obviously means that everyone needs to halt their lives, drop everything and do what Stuart says, right? Well, if you know the drill -- as you well should by now -- the answer is in the affirmative.

We cut to a shot of Stuart, completely off his trolley, being helped to the Jeep by Vince and Cameron after the night's festivities. "He was dancing like a twat, did you see him? He looks nice, then he dances like a twat!" Stuart laughs in that desperately unfunny way that only drunk people do, while I sit there and wonder how exactly a vagina dances. If anyone knows, I doubt it's Stuart. After putting Le Drunk Fuck in the passenger's seat of the Jeep, Vince tells Cameron that he's going to tuck Stuart in bed and will then meet up with him back at Cameron's flat in twenty minutes. "And it's bonus points, remember?" he says to him. "I should have gone for that two-for-one on Nescafé," Cameron replies dryly, as an all-too-familiar shriek cuts through the night air. "Vince, help me! Oh Jesus Christ, help me!" Alexander cries out frantically, running across the parking lot towards the Jeep, loaded down with suitcases and a hatbox. "They're going to kill me! They've got knives and everything, they wouldn't stop following. They're going to kill me!" he wails. "Who?" Vince asks him, concerned. "No one, you fucker, it's just a good entrance," Alexander replies, putting his luggage in the Jeep. "Look, it's me! I'm back, I'm home! Rodrigo went mad, chucked me out, chased me 'round Balham with a gun," he says, relating one more in a string of his life's adventures. Vince asks him about his job, and Alexander tells him he quit: "They put me on the Saturday night shift, and me a homosexual!" Well, okay. Alexander then asks Vince if he can stay at his place, and Vince tells him that he can, but that he was actually going to stay at Cameron's. Realizing that Alexander doesn't know he's with Cameron, Vince starts to make introductions, but Cameron reminds him that they met at Phil's funeral, and quite charitably tells Vince to sort out Stuart and Alexander, and that he'll just catch up with him the day. Cameron gives Vince a parting -- not passionate -- kiss, prompting Alexander to coo, "Ooh, don't mind me," and get in the Jeep. Vince asks Cameron if he minds the change to their plans. "Your friends are mad, and you're mad too," Cameron tells him good-naturedly, giving him another kiss and walking to his car. As Vince gets in the Jeep, Alexander lets loose. "I turn my back for a second! Vincent Tyler, is that or is that not a boyfriend?"

Back at Stuart's flat, Vince and Alexander dump Stuart in bed and cover him up, with Vince telling Alexander, "It's not a boyfriend boyfriend. We're just having a laugh." Alexander disagrees, finally asking Vince, "When you have a wank, do you think about him?" "What's that got to do with it?" Vince wonders aloud. "Do you think about Cameron?" Alexander presses him. "No," Vince replies. "Congratulations -- he's your boyfriend," Alexander proclaims. Vince sighs heavily and finally accepts that, yes, someone you date exclusively, who takes you out to dinner, comes to see you at work and fucks your brains out is, no matter how you slice it, your boyfriend. Or, in this case, his boyfriend. "Oh, sound happy for God's sake," Alexander admonishes him, asking if Cameron's good in bed, which Vince confirms he is, but then expresses doubts over the fact that Cameron's not really into the Canal Street scene. "Sometimes he looks at me like I've been brought up by a pack of wolves," he complains. Wolves...Stuart...the only difference is that one comes with fur and one comes with a near-Jheri curl, Vince.

The day, Stuart and his sister Marie pull up to their parents' well-kept, smallish house and Marie implores Stuart to have an actual conversation with their father about this whole divorce business. As they walk to the front door, Marie pulls out her set of keys, and Stuart wonders aloud why she's got them. "They're getting old -- of course I've got keys," she tells him with a slight "UH, duh," tone in her voice. Inside, their mother asks Marie with whom she's left her sons, and Marie replies, "No one, I left them playing on the edge of a cliff." I bet Stuart's mum wishes she'd thought of that when Stuart was a little boy.

Cut to a scene of Vince introducing Cameron to Hazel and Bernard. Cameron passes Hazel's stringent requirements for any boyfriend of Vince's (i.e. must be a multi-celled organism) and then Nathan makes some cheeky comment about how Cameron is Vince's first boyfriend. Cameron makes Nathan look like the silly near-virgin he is, and I laugh my ass off. I can't let myself like Cameron too much, but anyone who makes Nathan feel stupid has earned my admiration, if not my respect or tolerance. I'm funny that way.

Oh, wait. Stuart's father's changed his mind and isn't going to divorce his wife after all -- they're going to go to Paris instead. Um...okay? Stuart loses his nut (Hee, did you see how I did that, there?), which makes Daddy look sad. So if Stuart didn't get his apathetic nature from his father and he didn't get it from his mother, I'm thinking he's an adopted child. And it makes sense, because if I'd given birth to Stuart, I think I'd sense that my child was evil and give him away to a couple of unsuspecting leprechaun-people, too. Hold up -- what year was Rosemary's Baby made? D'you think...? Nah.

As Stuart drops Marie off at her house, she implores him to get it over with and come out to their parents already. He reminds her that it took her ages to tell them that her husband was leaving her, to which she pointedly responds, "But I told them in the end. What else was I going to do? Lie for the rest of my life?" All Stuart can do is tell her to fuck off, and she replies in kind, both of them full of love for each other. And I'm scared that Stuart's relationship with his big sister actually mirrors my relationship with my little brother. Except for the gay part and the abandoning husband part, but the part where we say hideously mean things to each other with the light of familial love in our eyes is just about right. I hope my future children can tell each other to fuck off with that much affection.

We're now treated to a shot of Vince and Cameron plopping down on a bench in the town centre to Alexander and Nathan, all of them loaded down with shopping bags. "I did warn you," Vince says to Cameron, "call round my mother's, you get a list of shopping." Er. Vince is carrying a DKNY shopping bag and a Waterstone's shopping bag. DKNY is, like, a store where people buy nice clothes, and Waterstone's is a bookstore. Don't both of these places seem as if they'd be as foreign as Khazbekistan to Hazel? Just checking. So then Alexander starts telling a story about one of Hazel's get-rich-quick schemes, during which an innocuous-looking, middle-aged couple walking arm-in-arm passes the group. "Oh, would you look at that," Alexander sneers. "Hello!" he shouts, and the couple continues walking past them. "Hello! Hello! I SAID hello! I SAID hello! Oi, I SAID hello! Look at me, I said hello!" he rages, as the couple seems not even to be actively ignoring him; they just don't even register his presence. Alexander stares sadly after them, then unceremoniously resumes his Hazel anecdote where he left off. He doesn't even finish the first sentence before he stands up suddenly and cries, "Fuck 'em! Just fuckem!" After he storms away, Vince tells Alexander and Cameron that the couple was in fact Alexander's mum and dad. Yet another reason for me to want to give Nathan a good slap for being such a jerk to his mother, as if one was needed.

That night, everyone but everyone -- Vince, Cameron, Hazel, Bernard, Nathan, Donna, Dazz, Alexander, and Stuart -- is in a bar on Canal Street, and Stuart is complaining to Vince about Marie trying to get him to come out to his parents, while Cameron looks on. "Do you remember when she was seventeen? 'I know about you,'" Stuart mimics. "'I've seen your magazines, I'm gonna tell Mum and Dad,'" says Vince, not quite the UK's version of Rich Little. "I had to fucking pay her!" Stuart fumes, going off to get drinks. "So what's the problem?" Cameron asks Vince in an effort to get his pinky toe, somehow, into Stuart 'n' Vince World. "Long story," Vince replies, slamming the door in his face. Since I don't particularly care for Cameron -- and I'm in the minority here, I know -- I cackle evilly at the dejected look on Cameron's wrinkled face.

And the fun doesn't stop there, because Janice has just been led into the bar by Hazel, and Nathan looks like...his mother just walked into the gay bar where he's hanging out with all his friends. Nathan asks her what she thinks she's doing, and Janice says she's just come out for a drink. Hazel tells Nathan that she's been filling his mother in on the fact that the day Vince came out to her was the best day of her life, because that's when she found "all this." I guess by "all this" she means fag hag-dom. "It's not just for you, Nathan," Hazel says, prompting Nathan to inform his mother that she's shaming him. He tries to drag Donna and Dazz out of the bar, and Donna tries to convince him to stay, gesturing at Janice and saying, "She's made the effort, she's got a new skirt!" Okay, y'all know I hate Nathan with the intensity of...a lot of hot things, right? Still, I have to say that I see his point. New skirt or not, I'd be mortified if I was him, and I'm sure I'd throw a shitfit if my mother walked into a club when I was trying to act all cool and get laid. Seriously, wouldn't you? So the fact that Alexander provided the inspiration for Nathan's outburst -- "Fuck 'em. Just fuck 'em!" -- is all well and good, but I would have at least stomped my foot and squeezed out a tear or two. I guess what I'm saying is, even when I'm on his side, Nathan still sucks. Woo, what a relief. Hazel attempts to console Janice, telling her that Vince used to be embarrassed when she showed up at the bars and clubs on Canal Street. "Still is, some nights," she laments, "but that's Bacardi for you." Not seeing the humour, Janice says that she can't give up on Nathan, and resolves to wear him down. Stuart takes all of this in, sees Nathan storming out the door of the bar, and looks as if he's actually thinking about the situation unfolding in front of his eyes. Or maybe he's thinking about the fact that we're sixteen scenes into this episode and he still hasn't dipped his wick. Close call.

The day after school, Donna and Nathan are walking out of the school grounds when Christian Hobbs and his friends start circling. Christian asks Nathan -- in his own, narrrsty way -- why he's left home, and opines that Janice has been "shagging about." As the black blur of Stuart's Jeep approaches from behind (Oops, I did it again!), Christian blathers on about how he's had Nathan's mother, how she'd screw a dog, how Nathan's father can't get it up -- which is probably true -- and then asks Nathan if his own mother asked him to give her one. At that moment, Stuart stops his Jeep mere inches from Christian, blasting his horn, and shouts, "Oi, you. Open your mouth one more time and I'll shove my cock in it." Well, I like how Russell T. Davies is all plagiarizing the dialogue from my dreams about Robbie Williams, but...erm, nevermind. That was a good line, no matter who dreamt it up first. Nathan gets in the Jeep and Stuart says, "I'm taking you home." Nathan thinks he means Hazel's, which he doesn't. "I said home," Stuart corrects him.

In the shot, Stuart and Nathan pull up to the curb outside the Maloney homestead (er, I mean, "council house"). Stuart tells him to give his parents a chance, but Nathan insists he's just going to go back to Hazel's. "Nathan, your mother and father know. You don't know how lucky you are. Go and argue, go and shout, go and -- go and watch telly with them, I don't care. Just get in there." Nathan grins. "If I do...Can I have another shag?" he asks. "Cheeky sod," Stuart replies. "Good luck." Nathan smiles, then holds his head in a "Can I please have a kiss, sir?" sort of way. Stuart leans over to lay one on him -- this being scene nineteen and still no sex for Mr. Jones, he's powerless to resist -- and as they kiss, a car slams into the back of Stuart's Jeep. "What the fuck?!" Stuart cries as the car reverses and rams the Jeep again. He jumps out and shouts at the driver of the car, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" A fortysomething man in a suit gets out of the car and looks like he could well murder Stuart. Stuart, knowing the look of a man hell-bent on revenge, twigs that this man is feeling particularly homicidal. "Oh shit," he mutters. "It's my Dad!" Nathan shouts, getting out of the Jeep. Roy, Nathan's father, is near tears with anger. "Nathan, get in the house," he orders. Turning to Stuart and raising his voice, he lets loose. "He's fifteen years old. He's fifteen. That boy is fifteen!" Stuart, not one to resist the urge to be a smart-arse, shoots back, "So? That Jeep's only six months, and you've still gone and buggered it!" Roy takes a swing at Stuart (go, Roy!), who dodges the fist and pulls out his cell phone, holding it up as if it was kryptonite and Roy was Superman. "I'm warning you. Nine. Nine. One more nine, and I'll have the police," he threatens. (For those of you who don't know, instead of 911, Britons dial 999 for emergency. For those of you who did know, congratulate yourself for being so smart or, you know, living in the UK.) "Phone 'em! Bring 'em here! And I'll tell them what you've done to a fifteen-year old boy!" Roy shouts back at him. "Good point," Stuart remarks.

Janice emerges from the house and asks Roy what the hell is going on, and Roy takes another swing at Stuart, missing yet again. Roy shouts at Janice to take Nathan inside. "Take him upstairs and lock him in the closet!" Stuart mocks. "You bastard, you little bloody bastard!" Roy rages, stopped from taking another ill-advised swing by the appearance of Nathan's little sister Helen, who's come outside to see what's happened to the car. Nathan and Janice tell her to go back in the house as Stuart jumps into the Jeep and drives away. As he drives, he looks in the rear view mirror and sees Roy having a go at Nathan in the middle of the street, telling him that he's going to pay for this. Stuart suddenly brakes and reverses all the way back to where they're standing. Roy grabs the Jeep's bumper -- which is laying in the street, as opposed to still being attached to the Jeep -- and wields it as a weapon. "Come back for more? Do you want more? Because I'll give you more. I'll give you plenty, you little bastard!" he yells. Stuart glances at Nathan and opens the passenger door, and Nathan jumps in. "Roy, sweetheart," Stuart grins. "Less of the 'little,'" he says cheekily, flooring the accelerator and speeding off down the street. Roy looks completely desolate, and starts sobbing his eyes out in the middle of the street. He's coping with this in exactly the wrong way, but I defy you to watch this scene and not feel immensely sorry for the man...and not just because he spawned Nathan.

Back at the same bar we saw the night before, Nathan and Stuart are recounting the entire story to the assembled gaggle of friends, with everyone pissing themselves laughing. Hazel seems to be the only one who realizes that the situation isn't all shits and giggles, and says that she's going to phone Janice. "Nathan Maloney, you're a lucky bastard. First of all you invent a violent father, then you actually get one," Vince tells him. Having not been around when Nathan made up the lie about his Dad threatening to beat him up, Cameron asks Vince how that's lucky. "Long story," Vince replies dismissively, his familiar refrain growing increasingly annoying to Cameron, and increasingly sweet to me. Sorry, but I love to see Cameron excluded, edged out and feeling like an outsider. While Nathan is impersonating his father's angry cries -- "Fifteen...! Fifteen years old!" -- Stuart's mobile rings, and it's Romey. "At last! If you returned just one of my calls..." she chides, obviously not joking. "Look, you wouldn't believe the day I've had -- I've been attacked!" Stuart says, just getting the ball rolling on the whole it's-all-about-me thing. Romey asks him if he can come over, since she needs to talk to him about something quite important. As she asks him, Lance the lodger comes up beside her and puts a supportive arm around her. Stuart tells her he can't come over because the Jeep's totalled, but that he will definitely be there the day to see Alfred, and that he has Nathan to thank for this whole mess. "I'm pressing charges. I'm suing for assault!" he tells her. "Stuart!" Romey cries, losing her cool for the first time we've seen. "I'm getting married."

At Romey and Lisa's, Stuart barges into the house, demanding to know what's going on. Vince and Cameron, who've had to give him a lift, follow him into the house. "I'll phone the restaurant, see if we can get a table for later," Cameron tells Vince, who replies that he'd better just cancel their reservations altogether. Cameron looks peeved. I laugh.

Stuart arrives home in a taxi, Alfred in tow. As he goes to open the door to his building, his father, Clive, emerges from a parked car and tells Stuart that he's just been to see a friend in the hospital. "You've got your hands full," he comments, gesturing towards the baby. "Alfred...He's Romey's, my friend Romey, she's having a party. I said I'd take him -- all that cigarette smoke and stuff," Stuart lies. "She's left her baby with you?" his father asks. Hee. (If I were a plagiariza, I'd steal a line from Stee's recap of the Road Rules episode where the Road Rulers babysit and say that I'd rather have my kid looked after by a bunch of NAMBLA conventioneers than leave him with Stuart.) Inside, he admires the flat and says that it must have been expensive. "I can afford it," Stuart replies. Abruptly changing the subject, his father tells him that the whole divorce idea wasn't actually a joke. "I'm only fifty-five. I could do anything," he says. "You'd fall apart without each other," Stuart responds. Clive tells him that he doesn't think that they would. "You know what she's like, your mother. It's not easy...And Marie's been on the phone, having a go. That's the thing about your sister, she says what he thinks." Stuart grins. "And then says it all again," Clive adds. After standing there and smiling at each other for a bit, Clive starts asking questions about this woman who's crazy enough to leave her infant with his son. Stuart says he knows her from "way back," and Clive remarks that she must be a very good friend. "She's not that sort of friend," Stuart answers, smiling. Clive goes a bit quiet and gets a serious look on his face. "Stuart, I didn't think that for a second." Ooh, busted! But then Clive changes the subject back to himself and Stuart's mother for a bit, before breaking off and starting at Stuart. "If ever...If ever there's anything..." he starts, trailing off weakly. "Like what?" Stuart asks. Erm, that you've shagged sixty-eight sixty-ninths of Manchester's gay male population, maybe? But instead of saying, "Look, I realize you're gay," and getting the whole coming-out thing over with, Clive makes his excuses and leaves. Boo! Hiss!

Okay, so then Cameron's sitting on his own in this bar when Stuart comes along and sits down, grinning to himself. "What are we going to do?" he asks Cameron. "About what?" Cameron replies. "Vince's birthday," clarifies Stuart. "Depends on if I'm still here," Cameron says. Things get a bit more intense, with Cameron really going for Stuart's jugular. "What is it, a family? All those people gathered round, your own little make-believe family? You even had a baby just to finish it off. If you think that's a family then you're fucked." Well, if Stuart has one constant state, I'd say "fucked" or "fucking" would sum it up pretty well. But oh no, Cameron's not done. "It's sex. It's always sex with you. Everything you do is sex." So, Cameron also has a knack for stating the obvious, then. Further proving this, he tells Stuart that Vince is happy enough just to be with Stuart every day, waiting for the day that Stuart finally fucks him. Stuart hasn't yet shot back with any sarky remarks, which is something new. "Look, I can just go," Cameron tells him. "I don't think he'd even notice. But he's worth the chance. He deserves the chance, doesn't he?" Stuart asks him what he's supposed to do. "Leave him alone," Cameron replies forcefully. "Just leave him alone," he says more angrily. "Because there's no such thing as Vince -- he doesn't exist on his own. You don't let him." Cameron then tells Stuart how much he really likes Vince before getting up and letting Stuart mull over what he's said. Stuart just sits there, with an "Oh, shit" kind of look on his face. Again, he's either thinking about the mess he's made of Vince, or the fact that he's gone an entire episode and not exchanged bodily fluids with any other mammal. Poor him. Poor us.