Spaced Newbie Recap: “Ends”
“Life just isn’t like the movies.”
Can all season finales mimic what the season one finale of Spaced managed to accomplish?
There’s no come together moment for the group, which is a bit of a shame after the last episode; they’re all splintered into their own storylines for the most part. Brian and Twist are starting their relationship of sorts with a visit to an exhibition where all of the paintings are all done in white. This leads to some broader comedic moments with the two commenting over each piece like there’s anything different with them.
Mike is looking to be hired back into the reserves and we finally learn about his accident as a child where he dislodged his retinas jumping out of a tree due to Tim’s goading. We get some small visual gags from this one, things that on paper seem too simplistic to be funny but onscreen end up being hilarious. All of his officers wearing the same yellow tinged glasses was an easy punch line, but a good one.
Mike passes, and he and Tim are excited, and it’s nice – even though I wish we’d had more of the two of them in the last episode. Mike and Tim, Tim and Brian, Daisy and Martha-all great pairings, and if there’s anything I could complain about for the episode it would be that they just needed more group interaction.
This, of course, is all unnecessary complaining when I think about how good the A storyline was. Tim and Daisy are the heart of the show and they continue to be so. The episode begins with them hanging out and ends on the same note. They like one another’s company. This is why their status quo is thrown a curveball, when Sarah-Tim’s ex-asks to speak with him. Daisy knows what this means, and has a better intuition about this kind of thing than Tim, who is oblivious.
Daisy is immediately on edge when Tim has his first meeting with Sarah, predicting what she’s going to say to him that results in them back in a relationship and Tim dating the woman who broke his heart. She’s proven right when he returns and tells her that Sarah said she broke up with Dwayne and she’s feeling confused. He thinks she might want to move back in together.
Daisy is visibly upset and her frustration builds until Tim shouts at her to back off. In a fantastically done scene where Tim and Daisy mirror the characters in Mortal Kombat, they lash out at one another, saying things that are biting and painfully honest, things that only close friends could use against one another in a fight. As much as we love our friends, they can often be the ones to knock us down the hardest because when they say things, they know they’re true. Jessica Hynes is particularly wonderful in this scene with some strong delivery.
The script as a whole in the episode is well paced with just the right amount of buildup to this argument – the tension’s been therem and now it’s all let out. Daisy tells Tim that’s he’s being ignorant about Sarah wanting to get back together with him because of his own desperation, and Tim tells Daisy that she’s only prodding because she needs another excuse to not write. Daisy ends the argument with the upper hand, her insult having dug the deepest. However, it takes an alarming wake up from Martha that Daisy could be her in twenty years, that makes her take out her typewriter and get to it.
Meanwhile Tim’s meeting with Sarah is cut short at the bar and he calls Daisy and asks her to join him in easily my favorite scene of the series so far. It’s something special. Daisy is typically the MVP of the show with Hynes delivering interesting performances, but a large part of the credit in “Ends” goes to Simon Pegg in that final scene. He’s essentially denouncing the idea of love, while also accepting a significant friendship into his life; and despite the cynicism bleeding through the dialogue, it’s also largely heartfelt. Pegg has the ability to convey a multitude of emotions on his face at a given time, and we’re always able to read them, even when opposing characters are reading something else. He’s a dynamic performer, and his scene with Daisy is sad, disillusioned, and bitter; but he still manages to pull himself out of it for a moment and ask Daisy for a dance.
What a lovely moment. It interweaves with scenes of the other characters reaching their happy moments: Brian painting in color, Twist staring lovingly at a memento of their date, Martha passed out from wine, and Mike shooting off some military grade weapons. And then there’s Tim, Daisy, and Colin at the pub with the two of them dancing and laughing and sharing inappropriate anecdotes. It’s a scene that says all you need to know about the show in a brief sequence, and solidifies why I enjoy this show so much. Their friendship is integral to Spaced, and it’s what keeps it from feeling like a sketch comedy or from allowing the bigger and broader comedic beats from running away from the series.
It’s a show that’s ridiculous, sure; but it’s one that’s based off of human characters who we truly care about.
Now on to season two!
Allyson Johnson is a twenty something writer and a lover of film and all things pop-culture. She’s a film and television enthusiast and critic over at TheYoungFolks.com who spends too much of her free time on Netflix. Her idols are Jo March, Illana Glazer, and Amy Poehler. Check her out at her twitter @AllysonAJ or at The Young Folks.
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