\u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve noticed, but I\u2019m chuffed at the moment.\u201d Poor Alex utters these famous last words about halfway through \u201cLast Night On Earth,\u201d the penultimate episode of Youth season one, and you can probably guess how long it is before her good mood is spoiled. What\u2019s more surprising is that Alex is kind of the architect of her own doom here. For a brief time, she does seem to have it all\u2014the hot boyfriend, the great job, the loving son. She\u2019s so giddy about Patrick on this fourth* go-round that she\u2019s withdrawn a bit from the rest of the world, judging by the 347 notifications that greet her when she unlocks her phone in the opening moments of tonight\u2019s episode.<\/p>\n
Alex and Patrick have been in their own little bubble. Things are so good between them that he waxes eloquent about removing her old estrogen patch: \u201cThere is no finer symptom of love than the picking off of dried-in estrogen patch glue.\u201d I assumed Alex would press him on his use of \u201clove,\u201d but maybe in the time that\u2019s passed since \u201cDesperate Measures<\/a>,\u201d they\u2019ve already said the words to each other or she\u2019s finally learned to trust him. She definitely seems to be prioritizing their reforged romance over her work, so much so that she\u2019s ignoring emails and calls from her boss Sam\u2014who, yes, is her friend, but is also her boss. Instead of taking time off to canoodle with Patrick, Alex is pretending to work from home. Patrick acknowledges they\u2019re both slacking off, but that just makes Alex defensive. She complains about Sam not trusting her, and being weird about her having sold Yafa\u2019s book (which seems debatable, given that he\u2019s not her client).\u00a0<\/p>\n When she finally does answer one of Sam\u2019s calls, Alex learns that one of her authors, Jessie Findlay\u2014whose book is being shopped around to studios\u2014has been nominated for a Women\u2019s Lit award, and Charlotte\u2019s up for a lifetime achievement award. Alex is so thrilled that Sam\u2019s passive-aggressiveness slides right off her back. She marvels to Patrick: \u201cAm I having it all right now? I mean, I have never had it all before. Like, it\u2019s usually, like, having some. Or none.\u201d Alex\u2019s glee is infectious and hard-won. She hasn\u2019t navigated all of the events of season one perfectly, but she\u2019s been supportive of her son, helped out with her parents, tried to set Sam\u2019s mind at ease about this new chapter in her life, and attempted to keep an open mind about her own. The mistakes Alex has made along the way say as much about the character as her triumphs, and \u201cLast Night On Earth\u201d underscores just how often those mistakes pertain to her relationship with Patrick.<\/p>\n In hindsight, Alex hasn\u2019t had the best track record at work either but she\u2019s really half-assing things this week. When she eventually drags herself into the office, we learn that the frenzy of emails from Swift PR were about Charlotte\u2019s recent podcast interview, where she said that her books are her only children. (That\u2019s news to her daughter Livonia, who\u2019s been taking care of her for decades.) She steals Sam\u2019s thunder at a poignant moment and has to be reminded again to call Jessie about the nomination. Then when Jessie shows up at the office, she tries to hide from her because she\u2019d rather flirt with Patrick. But Alex really stoops low when she uses her mom as an excuse for not doing her job.<\/p>\n This is more than just \u201charried working single mom\u201d stuff. Alex shouldn\u2019t be this easily distracted by a new-old relationship, right? She wasn\u2019t exactly playing it cool before this, practically issuing an ultimatum<\/a> in the second episode (\u201cIt has to be the right time, \u2019cause another time\u2019s gonna be too late,\u201d walking past Patrick\u2019s place to try to bump into him on purpose by accident, trying to make him jealous<\/a> instead of just telling him she wants to be exclusive. But whether it\u2019s the pressure to get things right the fourth time around or something else, Alex doesn\u2019t really seem to be handling the boyfriend part of \u201chaving it all,\u201d which is the one she\u2019s been most focused on recently, all that well. I would say she\u2019s trying to rub her good fortune in Sam\u2019s face a bit when she expresses relief over Sam actually being annoyed with Frank instead of her for having \u201cthe partner, the happy kid, the job.\u201d Sam seems genuinely confused by Alex\u2019s admission, though, the more I see of their relationship, \u201cI don\u2019t know her\u201d-ing Alex\u2019s happiness also seems like something she\u2019d do to get at her friend.<\/p>\n Alex\u2019s smugness here is forgivable, or at least tolerable, because there\u2019s a brittleness to it. Peace comes and goes on Youth; just last week, Alex cycled through ecstasy and despair in just a couple of days. She\u2019s all in on her relationship with Patrick, and he seems tantalizingly close to being right there with her if he\u2019s tossing around \u201clove\u201d in conversation. But it\u2019s been so long since she got it all right\u2014so long, in fact, that Ruairi tells Plum the last time he saw Alex looking this happy was when he was eight. And we don\u2019t know how long it\u2019ll be till he sees that look on her face again, given that it takes her less than a day to upend things with Patrick for, oh, the third time this season?<\/p>\n As one of Sharon Horgan\u2019s creations, Alex is a deeply flawed yet lovable person. She gets in her own way plenty, especially with Patrick, and she\u2019s been increasingly flaky at work. But what\u2019s balanced things out is seeing just how worthless Lorcan is as a partner and dad, and how good her instincts are as a literary agent when the pitch isn\u2019t coming from someone as creepy as Malcolm (whose creepiness is co-signed by Plum and Freddie this week). It\u2019s to the show\u2019s credit that I can both see why Alex would be insecure about Patrick and still want to shake her by the shoulders for walking out the way she does at the end of the episode.\u00a0<\/p>\n The stage is set at Lorcan\u2019s going-away dinner or \u201cLast Night On Earth\u201d\u2014you know, because he\u2019s going to play an alien in a sci-fi pilot and that\u2019s why he doesn\u2019t have time for his son, who\u2019s been going through something? It\u2019s another couples-plus-Ruairi event, and it doesn\u2019t go much better than the last one. Frank and Sam are annoyed with each other, and Sam and Alex are also a bit off. They try to smooth things over by focusing on a common enemy: Theresa, who Alex mocks as Lorcan\u2019s \u201chole-mate\u201d instead of his soulmate. Theresa, of course, overhears everything and she gets her revenge back at the table when she disparages Lorcan\u2019s first marriage as the thing that got him to the other thing, i.e., moving to Toronto and trying to start a new family with her.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alex is incensed\u2014not because she thinks she\u2019s being replaced, but because it sounds like Ruairi is. \u201cYou\u2019re a subpar dad,\u201d she tells Lorcan, which seems like a fair assessment. \u201cYou are father-ish at best, and now you\u2019re gonna go again? Why? \u2018Cause you wanna get it right this time?\u201d Theresa\u2019s announcement and Alex\u2019s reaction cast a pall over the meal, but it wasn\u2019t going that great to begin with\u2014certainly not for Ruairi, who has to listen to stories about being there for Lorcan instead of the other way around. Aran Murphy does some wonderfully subtle work here, pursing his lips at Lorcan\u2019s latest oblivious statement and tilting his head condescendingly after making a pointed observation about Lorcan\u2019s stop-and-start career. The conspiratorial look that Ruairi and Alex share after he twists the knife again solidifies their bond, but there\u2019s room to question just how positive a development this is. My lizard brain said \u201cget his ass\u201d after Ruairi snarked about things not working out for his dad\u2014which could apply to the personal or professional front\u2014but it almost goes against the work Alex has done to try to keep Lorcan in her son\u2019s life. Alex has tried hard to toe the divorced parent party line of \u201cwe still love you and that will never change,\u201d whether or not her ex deserved it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, Alex is on a high when she and Patrick arrive at his apartment, secure in the knowledge that they\u2019re the best couple and she\u2019s the better parent. And then she bursts her own bubble by looking through Patrick\u2019s things, stumbling upon his Ross Geller-like list of her pros and cons. The pros\u2014including her fantastic kid and family\u2014clearly outnumber the cons, but the one con is enough to send Alex back out into the night, alone: \u201cCan\u2019t give me a family of my own.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Earlier in the episode, Alex sounded so sure when she told her mom and Delly that Patrick had decided having a family wasn\u2019t for him. I initially assumed that was part of some offscreen conversation, but it sounds like she might have made a bad assumption. It\u2019s still pretty immature of her to run off and decline his calls\u2014a melodramatic choice befitting the youth of old age. Why not just have it out?\u00a0 At this point, Alex has derailed things three times (though Patrick shared some of the blame for the mid-episode split in \u201cDesperate Measures\u201d), so maybe it\u2019s not the 47-year-old man-child who\u2019s getting cold feet. I have no idea how Youth will wrap up its first season in next week\u2019s finale, but Horgan is just as adept with season closers as she is season openers, so I feel pretty confident that it\u2019s going to be a doozy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stray observations<\/p>\n \u2022 Ruairi unfortunately takes the advice of a dope with a vlog, bungling his date with Plum, but he seems relieved to know he can get hard, albeit with the help of Viagra. Someone get this kid a father figure, stat!<\/p>\n \u2022 Is Patrick\u2019s list the result of being in therapy for the last two-and-a-half months, or has it really been that long since he cleaned?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve noticed, but I\u2019m chuffed at the moment.\u201d Poor Alex utters these famous last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-657435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}