After four seasons broadcast over five years, Channel 4’s university sitcom Fresh Meat has come to an end.
In its final season, we saw the six housemates struggle through the last year of their studies and prepare for post-university life.
> Buy the complete Season 1-4 box set on Amazon.
Now that the gang have graduated from Manchester Medlock (with the exception of Josie) and vacated their house on Hartnell Avenue, let’s take a look back at some of the final season’s highlights…
JP’s brother Tomothy
At the beginning of this season, we were introduced to JP’s equally posh, chino-wearing brother Tomothy, so named because “mummy wanted Tom, daddy wanted Timothy”.
Despite telling the gang that they need to sort themselves out if they want to succeed, Tomothy is living proof that a high-paying job doesn’t guarantee happiness, as he works five to nine (no, that’s not an error) and thinks that getting a coffee on his way home from work counts as having a good time. He had some of the season’s best lines, such as “she’s taking the piss like this is Nando’s and she has unlimited piss refills”.
Josie’s search for new housemates
With the reality sinking in that she’s a year behind the rest of her housemates, Josie made it her mission this season to find some new ones for next year.
Her efforts included joining the badminton society, judging potential new housemates on their tea-making abilities (“Oh my god, have you left the bag in? Get out, you pervert!”) and creating a mood board of her dream house, which featured Ken Hom, a young Kate Bush and Barney the Dinosaur.
The (sort of) downfall of Kingsley and Oregon
These two really reached new heights of insufferability this season. When Kingsley wasn’t claiming that sandwiches taste better served on a wooden slate and asking for his tea to be “colour-wise somewhere between beech and young pine”, he was boasting about his ‘Italian’ girlfriend and then losing interest after finding out that she was actually Swiss all along.
Meanwhile, Oregon was comparing herself to Jesus and taking funding away from sports societies to establish a poetry prize named after herself.
Thankfully, they both got taken down a peg or two, as Kingsley failed a big job interview and then regretted being too proud to take the feedback, while Oregon was ousted as president of the Students Union and ended up with a 2:2 degree.
Some uncomfortable truths about university
When Kingsley was asked by his older girlfriend to extoll the virtues of university to her teenage son, he got a bit more than he bargained for. Luca raised some good points, which cause Kingsley to have a minor breakdown, about whether university should really be our default route to take after finishing school.
This exchange was a particular highlight and likely hit close to home for a lot of students and graduates watching:
Luca: “What do you want to do?”
Kingsley: “Well, I don’t know. Perhaps work in radio or something.”
Luca: “And you study…”
Kingsley: “Geology.”
The gang’s future is suitably unclear
In a similar way to Peep Show’s finale on Channel 4 a few months ago, Fresh Meat ends with its protagonists no more clued-up than they were when it started.
Howard is reluctantly moving to the unknown territory of London, Oregon has spontaneously decided that she’s a novelist (“when you think about it, I’ve practically already written a novel – all I have to do is just write it down”), Kingsley is about to begin a degrading unpaid internship, and Vod is convinced that with her 2:1 she can now do anything like “cure cancer or be a teacher”.
And after JP finally gets the courage to tell his brother that he doesn’t want to follow in his footsteps and become a banker, he announces to his friends that he’s going to be an estate agent instead… which may or may not be even worse.
> Buy the complete Season 1-4 box set on Amazon.
What was your favourite moment in the final season of Fresh Meat? Let us know below…