Nidge proved what a lowlife he is yet again in an episode that turned up the tension to almost unbearable levels.
Warning - Spoiler alert!
And he didn't even shout "Fore!" Poor old Nidge, his private life and his life as Public Enemy Number One really are becoming very messy. On the mean streets, the 'RA have growing suspicions that he is behind the slaying of their Dublin brigade leader Git and at home, his partner quite rightly suspects that he's cheating and has sent him to Mullingar. Matters aren't helped by the fact that he's cheating, or at least trying to cheat, with none other than Georgina who is the partner of Daniel who just happens to be the son of Git. It wafts the scent of blood and cordite into the whole nest of vipers rather gruesomely. Small town Dublin, eh?
So yeah, it really was getting to Nidge last night. Out on Fran's spooky-looking acreage, it all came to a head in a scene that proved once again that love is just as toxic as hate in this show. You see, Georgina (the very good Eve Mackin) has the hots for Tommy and Tommy confided in Nidge about how this is yet another complication that he really does not need. In a crime of passion, Nidge hefted Fran's 5 iron, upholstered with two metal bars, and swung at Tommy's head repeatedly, delivering blow after sickening blow.
As Tommy lay convulsing on the muddy ground, King (rat) Nidge turned to the rest of the gang and whined, "I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it!" It was the kind of sudden and terrifying act of violence that jolts you out of the queasy unease that watching Love/Hate brings about. That thin line between love and hate is blurring more and more with each compelling episode. Last night it was captured brilliantly as writer Stuart Carolan and director Caffrey laid on the irony thickly as Angel of The Morning played over a montage of working girl Debbie going about her dirty work with a face contorted with disgust, shame and boredom.
That was the first few minutes of an episode which turned up the tension by slow and almost unbearable degrees. On Tommy's back, we glimpsed a tattoo bearing the names of his girlfriend and kid - Siobhan and Leighton - but these days, he can't even look Siobhan in the eye as he struggles to sever all ties with Debbie and also deal with the very unstable Georgina's growing infatuation with him. He already has her card marked - she's down in his phone as "Mad bitch" but all his earthly concerns may have come to an abrupt end after Nidge's handiwork with that 5 iron.
One recent criticism of Love/Hate is that it doesn't have any strong female characters. The women in this show are invariably beaten (Daniel proved once again what a vicious scumbag he is when he slapped Georgina about last night), referred to in less than flattering terms, or objectified in the gang's brothel. Last week Nidge threatened to throw acid in Donna's face if she breathed a word to anyone about Siobhan's rape. The critics may have it wrong - this brutality is another reflection of the realities of criminal life and what a bunch of lowlife thugs these lads really are; it is not some kind of statement on the part of Carolan. This is not Sex and The City.
Arriving down from the Statelet, something wicked this way comes. Sean McGinley hit town as Tony, a commander of sorts in the continuity IRA, and he was determined to get to the bottom of Git's disappearance. At a 1916 commemoration, he delivered a eulogy to his fallen (smeared with a beer keg in the back of a boozer) comrade and later gave us one of the best laughs of the whole episode when he described Git as "one of our Mandelas." Tony is a lot smarter than Daniel (the strong, stupid type) and while Nidge may frantically be trying to prove his warped bon fides by running guns for the `RA, Tony is already making plans for Nigel.
Nidge turns green as Tony delivers a eulogy to Git
As for Siobhan, well last night Charlie Murphy gave a heartbreaking performance as she told her counsellor about her ordeal with Git. Later, in the hospital as Tommy lay in a coma, she pathetically asked Darren, "Does Nidge know?" It really was horrifying stuff and it marked Murphy out as one of best performers in a show that has some very fine acting indeed.
Meanwhile, Darren is still holed up in Aido's seedy flat. Nidge owes him €18,000 for that double murder of an innocent couple (although how he managed to get through the €2,000 down payment he received last week is a wonder) and Darren, like everyone else, is close to breaking point.
Across town, Siobhan's mate Donna, not the shiniest CD in the pile, agonised over going to the cops about Nidge's none-too-idle threats and poor stool pigeon Elmo skulked around a shopping centre snatching covert meetings with his girlfriend and baby, the only people who appear to actually love each other in this whole sorry mess. "I've said that you've gone to Milton Keynes," she told him. Jays, if things weren't bad enough for the poor swine already.
Everyone to a man and woman is in a very, very bad place in Love/Hate right now. This is getting better and better. It's also building to an endgame in two weeks that should be real horrorshow.
Alan Corr
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