After some faltering early steps – poised precariously between enthralling paranormal drama and trying-too-hard-to-be-sexy teenage vom-com, uncertain whether to concentrate on Armageddon or getting it on – The Fades has finally found the right balance and is striding forward with the swaggering, blockbuster confidence of a boxer entering the ring at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
The third part opens – as all great television shows ought to – with a wanking scene. It starts off so steeped in embarrassment that it’s beyond laughable, beyond repulsive, beyond everything, as Paul fantasises about playing Strip Paper-Scissors-Stone with Jay. By the time she’s down to bra and pants and he’s fast approaching the point of no return, something truly unexpected happens.
It’s funny, it’s remarkable (it might even be a misguided moral warning from many moons ago about the hazards of masturbation) and – most important of all – it unifies the two principal strands of Paul’s story in (ahem) a single stroke. From this point onwards, the juggling act between the Angelics’ apocalyptic battle against the Fades and the greater and terrible tale of young love is finally resolved… for us, anyway. For Paul himself, it’s going to take a little longer.
‘Paul is having sex with my best friend!’ his petulant sister Anna protests to their freakishly chilled-out mother a little while later. ‘And when I found out and shouted at them, he did a magic spell on me!’
How Paul has coped with such a hateful harpy for so long without kicking off is as much a mystery as how Neil, leader of the Angelics, has survived for such a lengthy period of time with his guts hanging half-out of him, but our youthful hero uses his Anti-Fade Hands (a little like Jazz Hands, only shinier and infinitely more useful) to cure both problems, neatly stopping any more innards escaping from Neil’s stomach and innovatively preventing any more whiny bitch-talk leaving Anna’s poisonous lips.
With his bloodied intestines restored to their proper place, Neil and cool dead vicar Helen gather up some Angelics in order to find the principal Fade (who spends most of the episode in a tunnel, writhing in a puddle of slimy filth) while Mac broods in his bedroom, alternately playing violent computer games and understudying a hooded Jedi Master.
With his friendship with Paul fractured and seemingly floundering, it’s finally easy to feel sympathy for him – far more so than when he’s blathering incessantly on about films. (Although, ironically, that’s forgivable this week as there are two direct and deliberate movie parodies: one of Cyrano de Bergerac and another of Ghost.)
Elsewhere, Mark’s struggle to deal with Sarah’s disappearance – so far the most realistically human and moving thread of this multi-faceted story – gets both better and worse. Neil helps him understand that his estranged wife is dead but still with him and still very much in love with him – ‘Four days ago, Sarah watched you sleep with a girl called Vicky, and it broke her heart’ – but DCI Armstrong also has the perpetually unshaven teacher in his sights, keen to peg the murders of Sarah, Helen and the two obnoxious schoolkids butchered last week on him.
As the most relatable and (just about) likeable character in the whole show, it’s much easier to feel sorry for the heroically hopeless Mark than it is for Paul, whose heroism is habitually hopeless. If Neil really wants the most youthful Angelic to help defeat the Fades and save the world, his best bet is to tell his protégé the opposite of what he really wants him to do, as that’s all Paul ever does.
There are still a few rough edges that need smoothing out with The Fades (some of the awkwardness in the dialogue between the younger characters is deliberate; at other times, it’s stilted and self-conscious, as if they’re trying too hard for authenticity) but the giant steps it has made since its hesitant, confused beginning are extremely encouraging – and the climax of Episode 3 is a perfect dramatic triptych which in turn touches the heart, sends a chill up the spine and delivers a smashing blow to the face that even the heavyweight champion of the world would be proud of.
Aired at 9pm on Wednesday 5th October 2011 on BBC Three.
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