Having discovered superpowers, lost his virginity, grown wings, died and come back to life, there’s really only thing left for Paul, the burgundy-trousered Chosen One, to do: save the world.
Unfortunately, that’s in next week’s series finale. This episode is a mostly efficient hour’s worth of resolution and setup, with lots of gore and violence chucked in for good measure.
DI Armstrong (Daddy Mac) sets up a missing-persons centre at the school, which is handy for two reasons: firstly, it saves the production team forking out on a new location and secondly, it’s where John the Angelic Killer and his gang of Fades are re-growing their bodies. (‘It’s a school,’ Paul gasps in horror when he finds a load of cocoons in the boiler room, ‘not a fucking fridge.’)
It’s not long before almost all the goodies, baddies and deadies have gathered here – except Sarah, who is becoming flesh herself in the privacy of Neil’s bath, and Neil himself, who’s quietly going around the twist with the strain of all the earnest shouting he has to do.
Soon enough, there’s blood spurting everywhere: Angelic Phil gets a spade in the face which you can feel through the screen; reconstituted scally Steve gets a fire extinguisher over the head from ex-girlfriend Anna (‘Nobody could be scary with a dick your size!’) and even greasy, disinterested psychoanalyst Dr Tremlett is roughly tied up after pointing out to Paul, ‘You always were a whinging little shit.’ Charming.
Of course, these latter two are actually reborn Fades and can’t be killed – or so it seems, until Paul shoves his hand through Steve’s Scouse guts and smashes him to sparkling smithereens. It’s a wonderfully climactic scene; unfortunately, it comes ten minutes before the end and almost everything that follows is a bit of a letdown.
John’s escape (first by crouching down, then by walking slowly away) is pretty rubbish, and the sudden, downsizing of the scale – it’s the end of the world, but it’s also pretty centralised around that epicentre of apocalyptic evil, Watford – makes little sense.
The rest of the episode then simply drifts listlessly towards the closing credits. The silly but touching (in both senses of the word) scene in which Anna allows Mac a quick grope of her boobs is ultimately superfluous; the reunion of Mark and a re-fleshed Sarah is likewise a nice touch (albeit a bit dubious, as she’s an immortal who resurrected herself through the consumption of human flesh and he’s a history teacher whose only grasp of the eternal is through his perpetually stubbly chin) that loses its power to clock-watching.
Even the confrontation-before-the-final-confrontation between John and Paul – Hey Bulldog! – is just an excuse to restate for anyone who hasn’t been paying attention that Paul, despite his newfound ability to kill off the Fades, has no intention of doing so.
‘I didn’t come back to be a monster,’ our hero protests, but Neil has other ideas. By kidnapping Mac (the one worthwhile scene in the closing stages) he hopes to force Paul to go on a slaughtering spree and save the world – without even giving him a chance to get a change of trousers.
Happily, just as Paul has no choice about what to do in part six, nor do we. Despite the lacklustre ending of this episode, next week’s conclusion remains resolutely unmissable.
Aired at 10pm on Wednesday 19th October 2011 on BBC Three.
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