Happy episode 101, lovely viewers and chums! There are now as many MIC programmes as there are fictional dalmatian puppies, although I’m not sure if that includes the Christmas specials, _Come Dine With Me_s, and/or Pongo and Perdita. We start with some masterful filming and filtering. Spencer has woken up all alone in his flat, and although we’re supposed to think he’s lonely without Lauren, the lighting is so lovely that instead of feeling sorry for Spenny, we want to move in with him. Is that place South facing? Does his coffee machine really turn itself on in the morning? Happily we’re distracted from the madness with an eyeful of Spenny’s bed hair. There’s a ledge at the back of his head that you could keep mugs on. He looks like he’s had a haircut from your uncle - you know, the one who keeps trying to shave his hedges into swans but they just look like semi tumescent nobs. Elsewhere Louise is shaking her head at him over brunch and talking about how Lauren got ‘totally scrowed over’ - that’s posh for ‘shafted’ - but we think Lauren is well out of it when it comes to old Ledge Head.
Nicola and Mytton aren’t doing well either, coming to blows at the counter of South West London’s premiere iced asparagus shop. After Mytton has said 'I will have two asparaguses, please!' it takes a good seven minutes for the lady at the till to take his money and put them in a bag, as she’s eavesdropping. Nicola is complaining that Alex isn’t clean enough, and Alex is inefficiently trying to break up with her - but it’s like watching the Dalai Llama trying to fire Kris Jenner using nothing but proverbs. Alex, don’t make her go back to Ireland! She needs to stay in Chelsea, she’s only just mastered Posh Girl foundation (you put it on your lips and your eyebrows).
Jess can’t quite bring herself to sleep with Jamie Biscuits, despite buying lots of posh bras (Millie ‘wisely’ says ‘if you can’t get past that point, you can’t progress’ - MILLIE, they are the SAME THING!) but Lucy and James seem pretty sweaty and smug, hanging out at the gym together, and Sam reckons it’s going so well with Tiff that it’s safe to get her initials tattooed on his arm. Or, as Mark Francis puts it ‘the first two letters of TWAT’.
Over a relatively civilised dinner - and why don’t they do this when they fancy a night out, instead of drinking 27 Jaegerbombs and falling onto someone’s boobs - Biscuits tells his friends they should leave their women and spend the summer with him in LA. And to get us used to seeing them all in horrible Poundland Coachella clothes, they’re all off to a festival! There are so many flower crowns that I feel distinctly funereal. Everyone is suddenly dressed like a refugee from a Portlandia sketch that has been discarded because there was no punchline. But they cannot be convincing as music fans, no matter how much bellendery they apply to their looks. ‘What do you make of these guys? I’m not really a big band person, but I quite like them?’ says Alex to Binky, having forgotten that he’s supposed to be her ex, and thought that maybe he’s meant to be her Dad.
Nicola has an unsatisfying fight with Biscuits, who has allegedly told everyone that Mytton reckons it’s over, and Lucy has a more successful showdown with Spenny over his poor treatment of Nicola. The only boy who’s getting it right, sort of, is James, who is trying to show Lucy a good time because she doesn’t like festivals. He’s brought a bottle of champagne in his rucksack - HOW did he get that past security? I was nearly thrown out of Field Day because I had a tiny Speculoos coffee biscuit at the bottom of my handbag and Security thought it was drugs. He’s also wearing a stripy red dress that looks like the sort of thing you might change into if you were getting a bit hot in your old timey barrel-with-straps outfit.
It gets worse. Spencer finds Lauren and tries to make it up to her by presenting her with a beflowered key to his flat. But it’s impossible to concentrate on what he’s saying, because he’s wearing a vest and a leopard print top hat. A leopard print top hat. That’s a big, tall hat, the kind favoured by Victorian gentlemen and unimaginative grooms - but rendered in the false flesh of a leopard. Let’s just take that in for a second. It’s like acid. The harder you resist, the worse the subsequent trip will be. It’s OK. Our eyes are getting accustomed to the horror, and…OH, JESUS CHRIST SPENCER, YOU’VE GONE AND STUCK A BIG PURPLE FEATHER IN THE SIDE.
It’s worth mentioning that, based on an estimate of the episode timescale, Kodaline, purveyors of music by and for the whitest white people, have been playing for about four hours. It’s getting dark. Josh comes out of the bushes to spook Lucy, and tries to reunite her with Steph. It works in the end, maybe because Lucy realises that Steph loves Josh, and she has just become official with a man who looks like he should be twiddling a moustache while being chased by a dog and a man clutching a string of linked sausages. Biscuits has a big, shouty go at Spencer for letting Lauren back into his life, telling him that it’s going to be very hard for Spenny to sex strange ladies if he’s worried about Lauren walking through the door. Oh, Biscuits, he will find a way. Don’t you worry. And Mark Francis has a pleasingly greedy amount of Hundreds and Thousands on his ice cream. Oh, we hope he’s coming to LA too. West Coast, are you in one’s house?
Hero of the series
Let’s hear it for Lucy, who was an unlikely source of strength and focus for Spenny when it came to keeping his relationship on track. He’s (basically) had the same relationship for the whole series, which is more shocking than the thought of Mark Francis enjoying a £5.99 Masala at the Wetherspoons Curry Club.
Villain of the series
We could give this to Biscuits, who has acted as an enemy of love, or Elliot, who will never be forgiven for those nudes, but after giving it some serious thought I award this to…SPENCER’S LEOPARD HAT!
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MIC 9.10 Alik Must Flee, Spencer Might Have Been Naughty, AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHELSEA
Follow Daisy on Twitter @NotRollerGirl
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.