We start with a lesson in sports psychology from Louise, who is leading the gang in a clay pigeonshooting expedition and explains ‘It’s only fun if you hit it, if you don’t, it’s awkward.’ It’s all too easy to imagine her spearheading a corporate team building day for the shadow cabinet. Rosie is wearing the first in a series of bewildering headgear items, a hat with pompoms that are only visible when she’s shot from the front, but disappear from view if she turns around to have a conversation with someone else. Dunno who does continuity, but we suspect they were out having an operation on their ingrown toenail when this was shot.
Louise complains of the pressure of a long distance relationship, and how annoying it is to have a boyfriend who wants to see her for more than two days a month. Elsewhere, Biscuits buys whisky for the bois and finds it hilarious, cackling while wearing a hat that seems to have come from a market stall flogging bin bags of things found in Pete Doherty’s flat in 2009. According to Biscuits, you have to look into someone’s eyes when you’re toasting them or it’s ‘seven years bad luck, and seven years bad sex with Binky’. It’s not clear whether that applies to JP or to everyone. Mytton reveals he might be breaking up with Nicola! Hooray! That sounds pretty promising for all of us, luck wise.
Biscuits claims that Sam has definitely cheated, and that he’s ‘made the Armageddon of mistakes’ in getting back with Tiff. Does this mean that Benn Affleck is involved somehow? Are Aerosmith recording a song about the upcoming love disaster? Mytton warns against a reunion with your ex, or, as he graphically puts it ‘When you go back into somebody’.
Mark Francis and Victoria have a run in with Jess, who tries to stick up for Toff. It goes badly. ‘She’s welcome to call and leave a message on my voicemail any time,’ sneers Mark, complaining that everyone around him is as cutting as a butter knife. Anyone who has ever attempted to reset their BT Broadband hub will know that the humble butter knife is invaluable, and something more hardcore, like a steak knife, is useless until you want to hack the thing to bits out of sheer rage.
The gang go to church for some carols, and Toff hides because she can’t bear the idea of bumping into Mark. Nicola and Steph sit whispering about Mytton and Jess in the back row, covered in feathers and looking like sexually jealous eagles. Biscuits tells Louise that her brother is a cheating toerag, and Louise looks like she wants to hit him with a hymnbook but can’t, because church.
Outside Binky and Louise try to winkle an apology out of Mark Francis who reacts like a Mentos Mint that has been pushed into a Coke can. Rumour has it that we might be seeing Mark on the new series of The Jump, so before we judge it might be worth remembering that he could be contractually obliged to gun for extra screen time.
Louise confronts Sam at home, who is stewing ‘Sam’s secret concoction of …mulled wine!’ Oh what could those cinnamon sticks be hiding? Cloves in an orange - so mysterious! Even more mysterious is his ‘1981’ jumper - Sam’s awareness of anything that happened before the new Millennium is such that he might as well be wearing a jumpsuit embellished with sequins spelling out ‘VICTORIAN TIMES’. Sam admits that he kissed a girl in Nottingham, adding ‘Now is not the time to tell the truth’. Wow. We knew that we were supposed to spend this post Christmas period lying on the sofa, but we got the meaning of that sentiment completely wrong.
We learn no-one knows how to play chess - also, if you’ve never played before, why would you start with giant chess? It’s like a toddler standing up for the first time and then agreeing to run the marathon. Binky throws a Bishop at someone and then has a strop. We meet Alik’s hairy Dad, who might also be Jess’s Dad from GIRLS. He gives Alik an ultimatum for giving Louise an ultimatum. ‘Say I want a family, you’re going to be the mother, shit or get off the pot and come over here.’ Mmmm, romance. Prep those ovaries, Louise!
In the most contrived MIC bumping into ever, a suspiciously unsweaty Steph claims to have been in the same boxing class as Jess, shortly before Mytton turns up and says ‘You ain’t seen me - right?!’ because, even though Nicola has a burgeoning friendship with Jess, she’s not allowed to go near her boyfriend. Mytton could not be less subtle if he were to get his dick out of his jogging
bottoms and swing it around while singing ‘Not for you! Not for youuuuuu!’
The only way to resolve the many tensions and issues is with a masked ball. Mark and Toff make it up - (‘Mark, how are you?’ ‘I am quite formidable,’) and Toff is so relieved she nearly drops her champagne flute. JP tells Binky she is ‘someone I could quite easily fall in love with’ - just tell her,man! Nicola gets dumped by Mytton and flees, running through the street with her black lace mask still on, which is going to make it more uncomfortable to cry and harder to talk to the Uber driver.
Nicola has the last laugh though, because Mytton is wearing a really stupid polo neck.
Everyone tells Sam to tell Tiff about kissing the girl in Nottingham, until Tiff overhears and Sam blathers ‘It’s not enough for you to…get upset about.’ even though it was more than enough when the tables were turned and truthful Tiff told Sam about her snog straight away, and got dumped for her efforts! Love, take that necklace straight down to Cash Converters. Sam is a bad lad.
Hero of the week
Let’s give it to lovely Toff for plucking up the courage to talk to Mark even though she looked like she would have rather been eating her own champagne glass. May she inspire us all in every scary 2016 confrontation!
Villain of the week
Do we even have to ask?! Sam is….we don’t want to say ‘worse than ISIS’. But worse than sitting in the one empty seat on the train and suddenly becoming aware of a warm, damp patch. Worse than an ‘insufficient funds’ message on an ATM screen. Worse than getting back to your desk and realising your delicious Pret A Manger macaroni cheese is cooling on the counter. Tiff can do so much better.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
Made In Chelsea 10.9 Mytton Is A Rat, Sam And Ollie Have A Chat And JP Won’t Go To Binks’ Flat
Made In Chelsea 10.6 - Rosie Has Purple Wee, Spencer Angles For A Three And Binky Loves JP!
Follow Daisy on Twitter @NotRollerGirl
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.