Here we are, then, at the last episode of Raised by Wolves (for now).
It’s a magnificent finale, full of little twists before ending with one very big twist, which we’ll speak about later. But in the preceding twenty-eight minutes, everyone gets a chance to shine as the girls prepare for a night out.
Germaine (Helen Monks) hears that Lee, the object of her affection (well, unbridled lust) has split up with cousin Cathy, and plans a mission to ensnare him while he’s getting twatted at the local nightclub. She asks Della for permission to go before being told she’s underage. ‘Physically, yeah,’ she agrees. ‘Legally, sure. But mentally: I’m like an old woman or something. You know? All wise and shit.’
Della considers this, and much to her daughter’s surprise, agrees: ‘Underage clubs were the making of me. If I hadn’t vomited my guts up on cheap cider and been punched hard in the tit by a Goth in a moshpit, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today.’
So Germaine gets her wish: she can go clubbing, but as long as she takes her sisters along. Aretha (Alexa Davies), looks up from her copy of Albert Camus’ The Outsider, filled with horror. Germaine protests that it will be a chance them to bond.
‘I know more than enough about you,’ Aretha snaps. ‘Remember that time I smelt you on a towel.’ Yoko, paraded by Germaine like a prize heifer on market day, visibly shrinks as Germaine cuts her skirt to ribbons to show off her legs. Germaine takes all her fashion tips from films that largely involve prostitutes (as Julia Roberts might say ‘Big mistake. Huge.’)
Della’s (Rebekah Staton) makeover scene is slightly shorter. She retrieves the good bra from the lower levels of the laundry basket, before dismissing it, arching an eyebrow in the mirror, and leaving. Despite what Liberty X have to say on the matter, she knows damn well what she’s got. ‘This,’ she declares, ‘is an arse. Not a curve. I’m going for a fag.’
Della herself has a night out planned (‘Not a date,’ she warns), with Michael, the trucker we met at the barbeque a few weeks back. While they hit the road, the younger women hit the nightclub with their carefully planned backstories to get in. Yoko is confused that she isn’t quizzed on her birth year.
‘Is it 1997?’ the bored door staff asks, entirely rhetorically. ‘It’s always 1997.’ The girls stay at the edge of the dance floor. Aretha knows how this works: ‘It is now nine. We have to stay til two. That’s a full five hours of this. I think that’s what the alcohol is for.’
Germaine resorts to desperate measures to get the attention of Lee, before Aretha decides to break the Prime Directive of Star Trek and interfere in the development of an alien culture. What happens in the next few minutes is a multitude of twists: Yoko gets her Romy And Michelle moment of leading the entire nightclub in dance, Germaine discovers that she’s actually capable of crying (it’s only one tear, but it’s a start), and even Aretha allows her foot to tap a couple of times.
The real cause for celebration, however, is Germaine discovering that her sexuality and feelings of horniness are in fact, her feelings of sexuality and horniness: she doesn’t have to be judged, dismissed and vilified by Lee when there’s a nightclub full of boys to work through.
‘It’s like a tap,’ she gasps, ‘You can turn it on and off.’ Aretha doesn’t answer, but even in the bad light, you can see a grudging smile.
Back home, Dad has turned up, which might change things around slightly. It’s been a joy to see a series in which whole scenes trundled by without the boys taking over (this hasn’t really happened in a major series since Absolutely Fabulous), and so when the second season happens (because there’s going to be a second season, right?) it would be a very neat joke if the action takes place six weeks later, after Dad has gone again, rendering the cliff-hanger irrelevant.
In the meantime, you should go back to Episode 1 and start again: this is How To Build A Hero for our girls.
Aired on Monday 20 April 2015 on Channel 4.
> Order Raised by Wolves on DVD on Amazon.
What did you think of the episode? Let us know below…