No-one, but no-one, carries a jacket over their shoulder by forming a fleshy coat hook from their own thumb with the panache of Ollie Locke. He opens Autumnal proceedings with all the dash of a pre Going Clear John Travolta as he struts through the streets of Fulham. It’s just like the start of Saturday Night Fever only better, because you know the racism isn’t going to be quite so overt and no-one’s going to throw themselves in the river or leave the priesthood. There’s every chance that Proudlock might turn up and announce he’s joining the priesthood, having convinced the Catholic church that statement eyewear is more important than taking a vow of celibacy, but we know we’re in for a fairly uplifting hour. Ollie picks up a flat white, skips through a cuddly puddle of dogs on the bridge, spies Liv showing someone else’s scandalous Insta story and then suddenly, magically turns day to night, swooping into a party and snogging a tasty looking new boy. Hooray!
The morning after the night before, Louise gathers Binky and Rosie for a 'hangover feast', or, as Rosie disdainfully puts it 'a bit of toast with some Marmite on'. She tells Binks that she was 'slutdropping all over the shop', sounding not unlike my uncle Earnest when he saw in his midlife crisis with tickets to see 'those Rizla Kickers'. Perhaps the theme of the party was 2009. Binky reveals that JP has been texting her, and then leaps off the sofa as though she’s a cat and it’s just turned into a cucumber. She knows they know and we know too - her and JP are a worse match than Deliciously Ella and a meal deal with a McFlurry.
Proudlock has returned! Sadly, he is not a priest, but he does try to get Jamie to confess to dyeing his hair by fondling it aggressively and implying that he is deeply suspicious of the fact that the French sunshine had anything to do with it. Mytton is back too - and he’s brought his old schoolfriend Akim, who bears the strange honour of being the first person of colour to appear on the show in a central role since it began in 2011. I wonder whether Akim hated Mytton when he was a child, and he’s only gone on the show in order to drop a really juicy bedwetting anecdote or horrible class photo at the worst - or best - possible moment. Liv turns up, as she has the ‘handsome man’ version of sonar, and has a quick bitch about Jamie and Mytton’s nemesis Frankie, revealing that Frankie has deferred a year of uni, seemingly to pursue her relationship but probably because she lives in hope that someone will give her a hundred grand to endorse a fake tan brand so that she doesn’t have to go back and sit exams in Consultancy Studies.
Sam and JP are working out, and Sam is debuting an interesting new hairstyle, featuring a fringe that seems to have been crafted from old bits of hair that other people had no use for. He tells JP that he and Tiff are like an ‘old married couple’. Dude - if you’re hanging out together a lot and not shagging other people, that’s just called being in a couple. You don’t need to be old or married to stop climbing up the Lipsy frocks of other women. JP wants to ‘make things right’ with Binks, which translates as ‘I think I’m right, everyone else is wrong, and I will defeat them all with my LOUD LOUD TALKING!’ Urghhh. I would willingly shave all my hair off and give it to Sam to make a spare fringe if it would make JP go away forever and leave Binky alone.
Ollie and the lovely Nick share that view -incidentally we learn that Nick did the same course as Ollie at uni. Farming. I’m starting to wonder whether I’ve got confused. Perhaps for posh people, ‘farming’ has a non bucolic meaning, like ‘hedge fund’, and the thing with the sheep and pigs and getting poo on your wellies has nothing to do with it at all. JP meets with Binky and tries to shout her into giving it a go. He sounds like he’s reading off an autocue. Even Spencer bloody Matthews would have approached the situation with puppy dog eyes and a posh handbag.
Jess FaceTimes sexy Maxcence - hooray! (Also, how do these people look so dewily model beautiful on FaceTime, with no-one worrying about double chins and blackheads?) Toff nails her second white dress-with interesting neckline based look of the evening, and we meet Emily. ‘She’s beautiful - from what I remember, girls don’t get along with her but guys fall at her feet,’ explains Jess. Emily, if you have those powers, go to Hollywood! See if any of the rowing teams are still hanging about in Rio! Don’t waste yourself on these chinless idiots and their angry girlfriends!
Liv, desperate to ‘get out of London’ brings Tiff to meet her parents for a Country Life shoot. Predictably the Bentleys make Steph and Dom Gogglebox look like Charlotte and Gaz from Geordie Shore. Liv has a strange posh accessory - a live in fake brother with hair so golden and floppily sculpted that it reminds me of one of the less desirable Christmas biscuits. Tiff half jokes about using him to make Sam jealous. ‘That’s such a good idea.’ says Liv, with the casual malevolence of a Roman Emperor asking a Christian to feed their pet lion.
Regatta time! There are so many questionable blazers in shot that I start to wonder whether I’m actually watching an advert for an especially obnoxious chain of estate agents. JP, wearing some especially aggressive piping, looks like he’s Hulk smashed his way into the Lower Fourth’s lost property cupboard after a bad accident during Games. ‘I’VE GONE FROM A BOY TO A MAN!’ he screams, as Louise gently tells him that there are other people who he is ‘better suited’ to. People she doesn’t know, who won’t need her to spoon feed them in six months when they won’t stop crying and don’t have any fingernails left. Elsewhere Tiff tries to make Sam jealous by getting Liv’s sexy friend to compare hands with her. It sort of works.
In the spirit of friendly concern, or just making the plot gather pace, Louise has told Ollie about JP’s designs on Binky. JP learns of this, and strides up to Ollie. You know those Dads whose kids get busted for bullying, who find the parents of the child’s victims and then threaten themfor telling tales? Yeah. Bizarrely, it ends with JP screaming ‘I KNOW WHAT I WANT! I’M HAPPY! I’VE FOUND PEACE!’ sounding less zen than Piers Morgan after someone has made fun of him on Twitter. ‘You should have come back with your tail between your legs, and…’ reasons Ollie, as JP continues to scream ‘MY PARENTS HAVE RAISED ME WELL! I’M A GENTLEMAN!’ It’s like watching the presidential debates all over again, with Ollie as Hillary, being the picture of dignity when anyone else would have thrown Trump, sorry, JP, in the lake. It’s funny peculiar that JP thinks Trump tactics are the way to win Binks back. Why would you be nice, make an effort with someone’s friends, bring them gifts and be sweet and super contrite when you could just scream ‘I’M A MAN! A MAN! MAN MAN MAN MAN MAN!’?
Hero of the week
It’s got to be Ollie for his kind, committed devotion to his good friend, with a highly commended for Louise and Rosie for the same. Also, we love that Ollie’s in love! If I were writing this on my phone, I would put 20 party hat emojis right here.
Villain of the week
Obviously JP, but I have nothing more to say about how furious he makes me. So instead, I’m going to have a nice relaxing think about Liv’s Dad, who I have an odd but burgeoning crush on. This is partly because his solution to sticky social moments is to have a “rather large” drink.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.