As this instalment opens with a long, slow pan of rolling hills and peaks, for a moment I think I'm watching an episode of Jimmy McGovern's brilliant series The Lakes. My wishful dream is broken, though, by the strains of Pulp's Common People coming from the stereo of Stuart's Jeep, as he and Vince playfully fight over a crumpled map while turning the Jeep around, having taken a wrong turn. Watching the scene unfold with me is an old man, standing in the road with a dog and a walking stick, wearing a frown similar to mine as he observes the two men. As he drives the Jeep past him, Stuart blows the old man a kiss; the old guy's frown holds for two beats, and then melts into a smile -- unlike mine.
The Jeep finally pulls up to a church and its attached cemetery -- where Phil's funeral is to be held -- and Stuart is such a crappy, negligent parker that I find myself feeling quite irrationally annoyed. I know it's only a TV show, but parking three feet from the curb on a diagonal is a really bad example to set for a whole generation of kids who are watching this show and growing up to think that that sort of thing is okay and natural and normal. Well, it is normal -- judging by the shitty parking jobs I see all around me -- but it's definitely not okay. Anyway. Stuart and Vince get out of the car, and Stuart takes his shirt off; yes, this is outside the church (I'm just pretending here that you're surprised -- play along, okay?). Then, Vince starts complaining about how he didn't really know Phil that well, and doesn't want to do the reading. "I've only been to his house twice. And who plans their own funeral?" he asks. "It's mad!" Changing into a proper shirt, tie and jacket, Stuart looks at him pointedly. "You've done it," he reminds Vince. "Like I said, it's mad!" Vince repeats. Um, okay, hands up if you think that Vince's funeral will feature a prominent Doctor Who theme. Anyway, Stuart's making it all about him again, so let's get back to it. "That's three," he says. "Three what?" asks Vince. "Three men I've shagged that have died," Stuart answers. "Not a bad ratio, all things considered." As Vince reels from the shock (and the audience doesn't), Hazel and Bernard pull up beside the Jeep, Alexander standing up through the sunroof. "Where's the do?" he asks in typical Alexander fashion.
As they make their way into the church, Stuart is on the phone with Sandra, his secretary, telling her that he can't write any ad copy at the moment, as he's at a funeral. Sandra, knowing not to trust Stuart any further than you can throw his ego, doesn't believe him. "Listen, organ music," he says, holding up his cell phone so that she can hear. Just then, some cheesy 70's era dance music (which I couldn't identify; I'll leave it to someone who was born back then to figure it out) blares from a stereo, and Stuart tells Sandra, "Of course it's not a party. I can't help it if he was cheap, can I?" He and Vince then seat themselves in a pew directly behind a rather delicious-looking boy with olive skin and dark hair. Rowr. Stuart, who doesn't require an invitation, has already begun to size him up. Not getting too wrapped-up in other people's problems, he still manages to think of himself in this time of need. "I'm getting buried," he tells Vince. "People cry more at burials. I want them sobbing their guts out."
Vince, preoccupied with Stuart's earlier revelation, asks him, "So when did you have Phil, then?" He's trying really hard to be nonchalant about it, which only makes his interest and jealousy more obvious. Stuart tells him it was May 1, Election Night. Vince says that he didn't think Phil was Stuart's type. "He wasn't, was he? He was half lard," replies Stuart, obviously not hampered by the custom to not speak ill of the dead, especially if the body's still warm and you're actually sitting amongst the dead's family and friends at their funeral. "I was having that boy...What's his name...?" Stuart pauses the stories of his sexual exploits out of respect for the fact that the pallbearers are now carrying his friend's casket past them. I totally take back what I said about him not having any manners. "Winston," he tells Vince, having remembered this detail after the coffin has passed. Stuart says that everyone else in the room, all six of them, just started joining in, when Phil threw himself on top of the heap. "Phil never said," Vince says. "I thought he hated you." Stuart snorts, "Well, he was all over me." He tells Vince that, while Phil was trying to snog him, he was crying out, "Get off! Get off!" and that someone called Big Bob was in on the act, too. "You've had Big Bob?" Vince asks him incredulously. "If that's what he calls big," Stuart says, leaning forward for the cute boy's benefit, "I'm the fucking...Colossus." The boy, who's turned his head to hear this bit, looks toward the front of the church as the service begins. Both he and Stuart wear slight smiles. "Is there anyone you haven't had?" Vince asks, and I fall over in shock that he even needs to ask.
Nathan, meanwhile, is sitting in class, staring at Christian Hobbs and sketching the boy with serious concentration on Christian's bum. Donna, sitting in the desk to Nathan, looks over at him and sees what he's drawing. Her eyes grow wide, but she just looks to the lecturing teacher at the front of the class and ignores Nathan's furious ass-sketching. Hah, I used to do that when the girl sitting to me in freshman English would spend the whole period writing sex notes to her boyfriend, except I think she drooled a little less than Nathan currently is.
Back at the funeral, the vicar calls Vince up to give the reading. At the altar, a very nervous, uneasy-looking Vince tells the congregation how Phil had discovered a bruise on his leg the year before, and had started freaking out that he was dying; that's when he planned his whole funeral. They all titter in the right place -- when Vince reveals that Phil had merely banged his leg on a stepladder -- and listen intently as he gives the reading: "D-I-S-C-O. I say, D-I-S-C-O. She is D, delirious. She is I, incredible. She is S, superficial. She is C, crazy, crazy. O -- oh, oh." Is that funny? It must be, because the people at the funeral sure are yukking it up. I, it must be said, cannot muster the will. It wasn't funny.