Forehead Mowing: Part 4

When I was a kid I pissed myself in class. Now every time I think about it, I have to phone my adrenocorticotropic hormone, She sorts me out. She tells me it was about my parents not getting along.

When I pissed myself on Tuesday though, it was because of different things. It was because Combo came back and I'm scared of him. It was because this is England was over. It was because my favourite little dandelion lady, Lol (out of this is England) got nearly raped by her dad.

I covered my eyes again. It was so awful. So, so awful and so hideously inevitable. Some other things happened in the episode but really who cares.

There was actually some miserable anti-climax after that. Shaun fingered Smell in the pub toilets, Lol and Woody pieced things back together again and England lost in the football. I can't quite believe anyone was really watching, watching. Not by that point.

And then that was it.

There have been a few things which were a bit shoddy about this series. It felt like the gap between the episodes was too big. Things changed without you seeing it. The moped gang stuff felt heavily cut. Combo's comeback wasn't given the attention it deserved and felt distinctly anti-climactic until the very end. Even with that, I'm not sure this morality, redemptive thing sits well with me, or in any way provides the equilibrium that it intends. Felix Culpa? Nah bruv.

But importantly, the series didn't feel accidental, or done on a whim. I came away from it feeling like that was essential; like it completely changed the movie for me; like the Lord and the Rings and the Hobbit. Because this is one of those curious things when the sequel acts like a prequel. Shane Meadows has taken the canvas of a four hour epic and made something which didn't feel like a waste of time. He's taken the characters that we enjoyed in his movie and discovered them for us.

I mean who makes stuff like this anymore? Who pulls it off. Once, I heard someone say that This is England was like an English Gummo. I agreed at first but really its not because: Football, and Thomas Turgoose, and Roland the Rat and Thatcher and Special Brew and underpasses. This isn't effeminate, pebble-dashed surrealism. This isn't an experiment. This is industry and meat and violence. Just because its good, doesn't mean its shite. Hallelujah.