Bubble IE Review: Ends Meet S1 Ep5

Posted on March 13, 2018March 13, 2018 by Oscar O'Connor

Aaand now we’re all caught up! (again.)

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The fifth episode of Ends Meet centres around Beezer’s latest identity crisis as he learns of Jenni’s new boyfriend. In the beginning, we see Beezer and Tony arguing about what it means to be a proper Dub (Dub is short for Dubliner). While Beezer flaunts his self-ascribed street cred with a distinctive hip-hop lingo, Tony yearns for the simpler good old days of Irish rebel songs and keeping cultchies (the Irish equivalent of hillbillies) out of Dublin’s Fair City. Seán Óg returns from Jenni’s house and regales them with stories of how cool his mum’s new boyfriend is. He tells them that he was allowed to watch a horror film about a scary clown, but he can’t remember the name of it. This episode if filled with these subtle little jokes and wordplays that the earlier episodes (to the best of my perception!) were sorely lacking. The next morning Jenni calls Beezre to inform him that it will be Zak, her new boyfriend, collecting Seán Óg that day. When Beezer opens the door, to his surprise he finds that Zak is black. This is where the episode comes into its own in my opinion. Instead of making Beezer’s response a typically white-trash racist one, Beezer is upset because he sees that Zak is in fact, cooler than he is. Beezer’s response is to draw inspiration from Tony and lean into his own Irish heritage. He assumes that he will have this edge over Zak, but he is quickly disabused of this notion too when it transpires that Zak is a blueblood Dubliner born and bred. The resulting identity crisis that Beezer experiences are one of the show’s most truly funny moments so far, as Beezer slumps into a self-pitying funk of highly dramatized self-loathing. He attempts to disown Seán Óg, claiming that Zak will do a much better job giving his son a real identity. Jenni rebukes him and tells him that she is no longer into Zak, on grounds that he is too clingy. The episode closes with Seán Óg and Beezer watching a mafia movie and styling themselves as wiseguy gangsters.

Our take

This episode of Ends Meet is by far the best so far in the series. Despite clocking in at the usual 12 minutes, the episode manages to be funny while subtly dealing with issues of identity and race. Much as I had hoped, the show goes for a much more outwardly satirical approach, with slightly more over the top characterization. The result is an episode that is simultaneously funny, likable, while being thought-provoking too. I love that the show introduces a black character, and while the subject of his race is brought up, it is not done so in a negative light. It might be said that Beezer’s assertion that Zak has more street cred than he does, simply by virtue of being black, is racially charged in and of itself, but I think only the most feverishly PC people would raise this concern. I think the show raises issues of race in a way that seems natural to the story-line and subtle. It is comedy’s job to provoke thought and challenge stereotypes by pointing them out as ridiculous, and that is what Ends Meet does here. Overall, I found myself laughing when not smiling during episode five, and I hope that the show’s creators continue in this vein. It took South Park a while to evolve from straight up toilet humor into one of the most nuanced cultural satires of all time. Hopefully Ends Meet can pass its own identity crisis as a show caught between comedy and commentary onto its main character more often, as the results were truly funny, and I would watch it.