{"id":634951,"date":"2026-10-19T04:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T04:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/634951\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T04:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T04:42:09","slug":"youth-recap-desperate-measures-call-for-bridget-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/634951\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth recap: “Desperate Measures” call for Bridget Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s episode of Youth, \u201cDesperate Measures,\u201d opens with Alex as we\u2019ve never seen her before: relaxed and blissfully infatuated. After Patrick\u2019s confession in \u201cThe Holiday<\/a>,\u201d he and Alex seem to be giving things a go again. They walk up to Sam and Frank\u2019s place with their arms around each other, kissing and talking about what sounds like a very passionate reconnection. Remembering the reason for their visit\u2014checking on Frank after his heart attack in Ibiza\u2014threatens to throw cold water on their flirting, but then they see him cooking up a storm in his kitchen. Turns out Frank had the \u201cbest\u201d kind of heart attack you can have, and now he\u2019s eating right, exercising, and just generally driving Sam mad with his overly solicitious, newly teetotaling ways.<\/p>\n

With \u201cDesperate Measures,\u201d Sharon Horgan and her episode co-writer (and one-time co-star<\/a>) Lena Headey take Youth deep into romantic-comedy territory, starting with the juxtaposition of established, taking-each-other-for-granted couple vibes and new (or renewed) couple energy. Sam\u2019s trying to support her husband on his latest kick (healthy living), but she\u2019s still getting used to his previous one (running a bar and being constantly surrounded by beautiful young women). Her relief over his recovery is now mixed with annoyance because he seems to be walking down yet another path that doesn\u2019t include her\u2014at least, not obviously. Alex, meanwhile, sounds ready to commit to Patrick: \u201cI could see us dying together.\u201d Alex\u2019s excitement is so palpable here that I wish Sam had mustered a bit more enthusiasm, but she knows Alex so well that she might have been holding back because she knew her friend would immediately follow up that declaration with a bunch of anxiety over whether or not Patrick is really into her. Alex sighs, \u201cI hate that I\u2019m still doing this at my age, but I can\u2019t help thinking \u2018Why would he be into it?’\u201d<\/p>\n

There does seem to be more going on here than just Alex and Sam being in different places, relationship-wise. When Alex gets a text from Lars, her aborted fling from Frankfurt<\/a>, she\u2019s prepared to ignore it, but Sam immediately tells Patrick about it. Is she intentionally stirring the pot? Her dynamic with Alex has been quite thorny at times, though that\u2019s usually been at the office, where Alex hasn\u2019t always been at her best. Patrick doesn\u2019t respond the way Alex wants him to, jokingly telling Alex to pursue the date: \u201cYou\u2019re only young once.\u201d Not exactly what Alex wants to hear, so from this point, Youth takes a few pages from Bridget Jones\u2019s Diary. (It can\u2019t be a coincidence that Alex works in publishing, right?)<\/p>\n

Though things are still very new, Alex clearly wants a better understanding of what she and Patrick are doing together this time, and she is not the type to sit back and wait for signs. But she also can\u2019t bring herself to directly say what she wants, so instead, she prods Patrick for their relationship status after sex, asking if seeing other people is on the table. He says he isn\u2019t planning on it but that\u2019s not a real answer, and neither is basically setting her up to answer the question first. Patrick tells Alex she can\u2019t put this on him, but this isn\u2019t some manipulation. It\u2019s a pretty straightforward question, one she keeps trying to get him to answer. Patrick seems so desperate to avoid it that he\u2019ll even bring up her UTI as a way to end this part of the conversation, but then he poses a pseudo-invitation to meet some of his journalist friends. Alex would look crestfallen even if it didn\u2019t hurt to pee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She tries to regain some sense of control through her work, dressing fabulously and dropping Ruairi off at the office (where he\u2019s now interning) and then teaming up with an equally fabulous Sam to wine and dine Malcolm. As with Goblin Seed, though, Malcolm has other plans\u2014he\u2019s booked a kind of head-to-head lunch date with Sam and Alex and their rival Grayson Cole. Veal is far from the only objectionable thing on the menu: Malcolm ditches them mid-meal and they also end up having to pick up the tab for Grayson. Worse, Alex is already rethinking her whatever\u2014situationship? relationship?\u2014with Patrick, even though he calls her twice during lunch to confirm that she\u2019s planning to meet up with him and his friends. Those don\u2019t strike me as the actions of someone who\u2019s noncommittal, or, as Sam puts it, \u201cinstitutionally single,\u201d but they also don\u2019t clearly say \u201cI want only you,\u201d which is what Alex needs to hear right now. So, whether it\u2019s the wine or the fresh rejection (on both the personal and professional fronts), she takes Sam\u2019s advice to review her \u201coptions\u201d and meet Lars.<\/p>\n

Alex isn\u2019t so drunk that she fails to notice Sam is out of sorts, and she does press her friend for info on what\u2019s going on with Frank. Sam admits they\u2019re no longer physically intimate: Frank\u2019s on beta blockers, heart meds, Xanax, and oh, right, recovering from a heart attack, and perimenopause has claimed her libido. Sam is distraught because she believes her marriage is rooted in an intense physical connection, one she\u2019s worked hard to maintain, and she doesn\u2019t know how they\u2019ll stay close without it. Alex does her best to reassure Sam because this is one area where she has a leg up on her friend and boss\u2014and maybe if Sam hadn\u2019t tried to get in all of her daily alcohol units during one lunch, she would take comfort in seeing just how healthy Alex\u2019s sex life is post-menopause (recently anyway).\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a nice moment of shared candor, but taking Sam\u2019s advice, both about the date and chasing a few bottles of wine with a Xanax, doesn\u2019t really work in Alex\u2019s favor. She passes out in a cab and the terrified driver has to take her home, then she rushes back out to meet Patrick and his journalist friends, Saleh (Yassine Mkhichen) and Ed (Eleanor McLoughlin). Patrick is still giving mixed signals, though\u2014he hugs her tight and kisses her deeply in front of his friends, but then he doesn\u2019t introduce her as his girlfriend or even a \u201cmy Alex.\u201d Alex still tries to make the most of it until Lars shows up, but the creeping hangover and the confusion prove to be too much. She calls Patrick a man-child, he tells her he doesn\u2019t want to play games, Lars proposes a threesome, and the night is officially a bust.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alex again tries to find solace in work but Sam is still pushing Malcolm and questioning her judgment about Yafa Bargouthi. A promising lunch with Camille, who\u2019s impressed by Yafa\u2019s work so far, goes awry when Alex\u2019s dad keeps calling about a podcast he can\u2019t turn off. Desperate, Alex calls Patrick for help and he comes through for her in impressive fashion. He rushes to her dad\u2019s aid, brings him back to Alex\u2019s place rather than leave him alone, and is an all-around good dude in front of Ruairi. And just like that, Patrick\u2019s endgame again. Maybe. At the very least, he\u2019s managed to go from Daniel Cleaver to Mark Darcy in a single half-hour episode. The post-coital conversation in bed where Patrick evades the \u201cwhere is this going?\u201d question by being charming, plus most of his behavior leading up to it? Total Cleave. Helping her through a difficult situation and then telling her it made him feel closer to her? Patrick might as well be sporting overlong sideburns while making omelettes. What clinches it for me and makes this the most properly rom-com of any of Youth\u2018s episodes yet is what Patrick says near the end, as he looks at Alex and her family. His \u201cIt\u2019s messy, but I like it. I like all of it\u201d echoes Mark Darcy\u2019s mid-movie \u201cI like you very much. Just as you are.\u201d It\u2019s not quite as poetically phrased as a different Darcy\u2019s \u201cYou have bewitched me body and soul<\/a>,\u201d but coming on the heels of an offer of exclusivity, it\u2019s just as head-turning.<\/p>\n

Stray observations<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 This whole thing with Yafa and Camille and Sam is bound to blow up in Alex\u2019s face, yeah? The show\u2019s pointed out on multiple occasions that Alex doesn\u2019t represent the guy yet, and she hasn\u2019t interacted with him directly onscreen\u2014just typed out an email that we didn\u2019t see her send.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 Ruairi\u2019s Wicker Man shirt impresses Plum (Libby Mai) enough that, despite the fact that he hasn\u2019t actually seen the movie, she invites him to her film club. I cannot tell how old Plum\u2019s supposed to be, but she doesn\u2019t seem like another college intern so is this going to be a problem?<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 Freddie Fox is giving off a bitchy energy distinct from the one he radiated on House Of The Dragon<\/a>, but the Grayson Cole stuff still feels too tangential right now. Then again, Alex and Sam\u2019s work dynamic has grown more prickly by the episode, so he might have a bigger role to play.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week\u2019s episode of Youth, \u201cDesperate Measures,\u201d opens with Alex as we\u2019ve never seen her before: relaxed and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-634951","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\/634951","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=634951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}