{"id":627997,"date":"2026-10-12T05:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T05:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/627997\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T05:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T05:34:12","slug":"youth-episode-5-recap-the-pain-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/627997\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth episode 5 recap: The pain in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s fine, I\u2019ll be in a couple with you.\u201d The words that (hopefully) no mother wants to hear from her son are foisted upon Alex less than halfway into this week\u2019s Youth.\u00a0In Ruairi\u2019s defense\u2014and the show\u2019s, and Alex\u2019s\u2014that offer is specifically about playing the game Head\u2019s Up with their pals while in Ibiza (say it with the cast, \u201cEe-bee-thah\u201d), and it\u2019s part of an otherwise lovely moment between mother and son. Ruairi, seeing that Alex is preparing to flee after less than a day because she\u2019s realized just how awkward it is to be on a couples\u2019 holiday with her son, encourages her to get out of her head for a while and have fun. Remarkably, she takes his advice. The retreat still ends with a visit to the emergency room, but on just about every front, it\u2019s a more successful trip than the last one<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As \u201cThe Holiday\u201d gets underway, Alex and Ruairi drag themselves and their roller bags up the fancy path to an even fancier vacation rental, where Frank and Sam are hosting their 10th anniversary celebration. The weekend is not off to the most auspicious start: Alex originally thought she\u2019d be accompanied by her partner-in-a-sexless-relationship Michael, but he recently ended things<\/a>. It wouldn\u2019t have been her ideal scenario, but she probably thought he\u2019d cook and let her take up space in his suitcase. Then, in quick succession, Alex learns that she has to share the guest house with Ruairi\u2014even though she hoped to be on the pull\u2014and that Cara and Patrick are the fourth couple on this getaway. This info dump is accompanied by the sounds of Lorcan and Theresa\u2019s \u201clovemaking.\u201d You can see why Alex would want to get out of there immediately, even if it means boarding another 5:45 a.m. flight on Ryanair. (The Irish airline, she contends, is supposed to be a blight on the English: \u201cIt\u2019s how we get our revenge on them for war and famine and Russell Brand.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Lunch in town does little to perk Alex up, though she does get a tantalizing glimpse of what life would be like if she were less frazzled by it. While trying to figure out how to eat as a singleton during a meal that seems designed for couples, she looks across the restaurant at a beautiful Spanish woman who is, like Alex, in her 50s, but, unlike Alex, is thoroughly enjoying herself. Alex continues to run into this woman throughout the weekend, eventually working up the nerve to approach her, which goes poorly, to say the least. Her compliments are lost in translation, and at one point she pees herself (which is triggered by choking on the smoke from her vacation cigarettes), but each mortifying incident is liberating in its own way. I actually missed Alex\u2019s \u201caccident\u201d on my first watch of \u201cThe Holiday,\u201d so when she showed up back at the villa in a sexy red jumpsuit, I thought she\u2019d just decided to treat herself. Knowing she required a wardrobe change makes the scene funnier without taking away any of the joy of it. She could have slunk away, having urinated a bit on the streets of this Balearic paradise\u2014instead she bought a great new outfit and tomatoes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Would Alex have recovered that well if Ruairi hadn\u2019t given her a little pep talk the previous night? Maybe, but their little heart-to-heart marks a turning point for the weekend, and for the show. Where previous episodes struggled a bit to balance all of the show\u2019s elements, \u201cThe Holiday\u201d bounds between storylines with gusto, giving each character greater dimension\u2014, even Theresa, who\u2019d just been the new woman in Lorcan\u2019s life until now. None of the romantic pairings are quite what they seem\u2014Sam\u2019s libido might be waning, and Cara and Theresa struggle to keep their partners\u2019 attention\u2014but Ruairi and Alex\u2019s relationship is healthier than ever. Now they\u2019re talking and listening to each other, and revealing just how close they\u2019ve always been.<\/p>\n

Alex and Ruairi do pair up for Head\u2019s Up and they absolutely destroy the competition, including Lorcan, who grows increasingly resentful\u2014and therefore nasty\u2014as he sees just how well Ruairi gets along with Alex. She isn\u2019t just Ruairi\u2019s mom, she\u2019s his friend. (Ruairi would probably never call her \u201ccool,\u201d but he also doesn\u2019t seem impressed by his dad being an actor.) It doesn\u2019t occur to the newly blond dope that he could have a similar bond with his son if he just made an effort; he accuses Alex of poisoning Ruairi against him instead. Lorcan won\u2019t acknowledge that the reason Alex knows how Ruairi likes to cook his rice or has inside jokes with him is because she actually spends time with the boy\u2014more importantly, wants to spend time with him. Alex has been trying to get back to her own wants all season, but she knows she\u2019s still a mom. Lorcan seems to think his obligation to his son has all but ended, which explains why he behaves more like an uncle who rarely visits or a third-string family friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the first time, Ruairi openly acknowledges this, and that\u2019s before he takes the MDMA gifted to him by a Spanish girl during a lads\u2019 night out. Having a selfish, immature dad is bad enough, but Ruairi admits he\u2019s worried he\u2019ll end up like Lorcan. It\u2019s telling that Ruairi opens up to Patrick about this\u2014maybe the latter isn\u2019t as much of a man-child as Alex (or even Patrick himself) thinks he is. Patrick assures Ruairi that having such an \u201cace\u201d mom cancels out having a wanker for a dad, which somewhat makes up for the fact that Ruairi takes drugs from a stranger on his watch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eventually, everyone\u2019s back at the villa except Cara, who fled to the club after a drunk Theresa tried to kiss her (or maybe she\u2019s just tired of being around people older than her). Lorcan blows up at Alex, but Patrick is by her side, not Cara\u2019s, and he takes her mind off things. When Cara returns from her night out, Alex realizes that Patrick was basically ignoring his sorta-girlfriend\u2019s texts to watch the sunrise with her. This, combined with learning that Cara invited herself on the trip, brings a smile to her face. Frank and Sam\u2019s celebration is cut short by the former\u2019s heart attack\u2014which he survives, so don\u2019t worry about losing Robbie Gee\u2014but \u201cThe Holiday\u201d ends with Patrick admitting he still has feelings for Alex. His confession might be the result of the brush with death; he even says life\u2019s too short to walk around with regrets. But when he tells Alex he misses her and she responds by saying he\u2019s said that before, he says something\u2019s changed: \u201cThis time it hurts.\u201d Alex\u2019s smiles became plentiful after she took Ruairi\u2019s advice to just have fun, but the one that spreads across her face upon hearing she and Patrick still have a chance\u2014and as a screaming man is wheeled past her on a gurney\u2014is one of pure pleasure. The rest of Alex\u2019s hangups about him haven\u2019t just vanished, but Patrick\u2019s definitely forgiven for Ruairi\u2019s MDMA trip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stray observations<\/p>\n

\u2022 Dawn Shadforth handled directing duties for the first half of the season, but Sharon Horgan\u2019s Catastrophe collaborator Jim O\u2019Hanlon handled the back half, starting with \u201cThe Holiday.\u201d A great reunion!
\n\u2022 How nice to see Ruairi have some fun, and for Aran Murphy to get to play so many different registers in one episode. It would have been easy for him to overdo the MDMA trip or even the admission to Patrick, but he never loses sight of the character he\u2019s been building.
\n\u2022 Frank\u2019s heart attack seems as brought on by his indulgence in certain substances as Sam\u2019s insecurities. He describes her incessant texting as an \u201cact of terror,\u201d which is a bit much, but it\u2019s not clear what he\u2019s done, beyond employing attractive women, to provoke such jealousy from Sam. I hope we learn more about their relationship as the show goes on, and not just because Robbie Gee is so good at playing the bon vivant.
\n\u2022 I\u2019ve been thinking about my last recap<\/a>, and the idea of the show trying to take on too much or be overly ambitious, which is something that can come across as faint praise. I don\u2019t intend it to be! Comedies take longer to find their rhythm, and if this were a 22-episode show, hitting its stride in the fifth episode would be par for the course. If Youth\u2018s taken a bit longer to find itself, that\u2019s mostly in comparison to Horgan\u2019s previous work. Her batting average is still exceptional. I did briefly think to diverge into a whole discussion about big, messy swings and who\u2019s allowed them, but that would diminish how strong Youth came out of the gate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s fine, I\u2019ll be in a couple with you.\u201d The words that (hopefully) no mother wants to hear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-627997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}