The final First Dates of the series begins with an unlikely bang - we immediately meet a marriage material couple, and a pair of daters that can only be described as ‘triggering’, especially if you’re a fussy Millennial like me, and would walk out on a date if they said ‘Honestly, I don’t think Theresa May is all bad.’ First up, we have Nahida, who we adore from the second she is asked if she wants any almonds, and replies ‘Probably, yeah!’ She’s paired with the bearish Thomas, who, other than being an Everton fan, is a perfect, penguin sock wearing dream. Nahida is wearing a maternity dress to make room for the carbs. Maybe we can all marry her, with Thomas, in a mass, cult ceremony, with a massive dinner at the end.
Veronica will not disclose her age, but despite her maturity, you expect to hear ‘Club Can’t Handle Me’ blasting out of her handbag as she sits down, such is her self-assurance. ‘I am charismatic, there’s nothing I can do about it. I have a wonderfully strong, powerful voice,’ she announces, while revealing that Margaret Thatcher herself told her to ‘rise above’ the haters. She’s a former Tory councillor (and current Tory). How will the producers make her seem sweet and sympathetic? By bringing in a Brexiteer!
Nigel - and I’m sure there’s a weird nominative determinism factor at play, where being named Nigel means you come out of the womb middle aged, and that your first word is not ‘Mum’ but ‘HARRRUMPH!’ - Nigel seems nice enough until we learn about Brexit. And that his wife broke up with him because they used to live in a place that sounds a lot like it might be Brighton, and he’d get into fights over the quinoa by telling his hosts that recycling should be burned and that the death penalty might not be such a bad thing. (I paraphrase. But I have been at parties with other Nigels, so it’s an educated guess.) Imagine being so committed to a party that cuts benefits for those in need that you’d get a divorce before you’d consider a bit of socialism. Then look at Nigel. He claims he feels no sexual spark with Veronica - but there is a pleasing moment when she asks after the functionality of his ‘equipment’ and his face goes from 0-breaded gammon slices in less than two seconds. I suspect Nigel will not be breeding any more Brexiteers - but I have a spooky feeling that he wanks to those catalogues where women who look a bit like K Middy wear a selection of brightly coloured cashmere mix jumpers.
Next up is Chris, a 39-year-old grandad, and widower Dale. They would be perfect together - their theme song writes itself, if you remember the nineties Disney cartoon Chip’n’Dale Rescue Rangers. You just have to swap some letters out and teach them to make chipmunk faces. But it is not to be. Chris grew up close to Dale’s late husband, and it seems to be a little too close to home for Dale. I am going to be bursting into tears in supermarkets and post office queues every time I remember that Dale still has Andrew’s childhood swimming pass.
Mark is introduced as a serial dater - and such is his prowess that he has already met his date, Gilly, four years ago. Gilly loves makeup, and struggles to get even her closest friends to understand that knowing how a contour brush works does not limit other aspects of your brain functionality. Her joke about leaving her 11-year-old child outside the restaurant is magnificently dark. Mark is fully taken in! He’s so enchanted by the surprise that he panics and compliments her teeth, which is a little equine, but sweet all the same. Mark had testicular cancer at the end of his teens, which he talks about movingly, although I’m a little confused by the cancer’s origin story. ‘Me and my mates had a massive bundle and he kneed me in the bollocks. My bollock went to the size of a tennis ball.’ Mark seems to think that the ‘bundle’ (in some regions, this is known as a ‘pile on’) shook the cancer loose. I am going to consult a medical professional about this, but in the meantime BEWARE OF BUNDLES!
It ends on a slightly jarring note, with waitress CiCi going off into the night for a mysterious date, and head waiter Sam working his way through a plate of petits fours in the middle of an unsubtle sulk. But Nahida and Thomas are going to look for love together, and Mark and Gilly went for another drink. Hooray!
It must be love
Thomas and Nahida proved two things - we can end this series still believing in love, and that music isn’t the food of love. Food is the food of love. Music is good, but food is BRILLIANT - and if you can find someone who loves it as much as you, you’re onto a good thing.
Love’s labour lost
I never, ever thought I would say this about a Tory councillor, but I would love to go for a big glass of wine with Veronica - I have many questions for her. However, when it comes to Nigel, I can make a series of awful puns about Brexit and being single and taking time to get over the ‘divorce’ - but in my (very personal) opinion, anyone who describes themselves as a Brexiteer deserves to be alone forever. Or at least, they should have dry quinoa for dinner every night while they think about what they did.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.