Season 1, Episode 3, Part 5: "The Results"

Gareth, as the quiz master, is getting the respect he deserves as the audience throws crumpled pieces of paper at him. He tries to laugh it off, but then loses his temper and shouts: "Do you wanna hear the results or not?!" People look a bit scared. That Gareth, all fun and games. Position number four goes to "Universally Challenged", a team consisting of Sheila, Keith, and the anonymous female employee. In position 3: Malcolm and Dennis, who were apparently all out of witty puns. The Dead Parrots look very drunk and very, very nervous. And then - it's a tie between The Dead Parrots and Ricky and Tim's team, which is called The Tits. The Tits?! OK, I suppose it's inevitable with guys that age. Or any age. Gareth sounds like this is the most exciting thing that ever happened to him. He says "tie-breaker" three times, asking each team to send one member to answer one final question. Tim pats Ricky's shoulder, and David gets up, but Finchy PUSHES HIM DOWN and goes himself. Wow. Some friendship. David doesn't even act hurt, so you know he's done this type of thing before.

Ricky and Finchy get up on stage. Gareth says, "The first person to shout out the correct answer wins." The final question is: "What Shakespeare play features a character called Caliban?" Easy for anyone who has, say, taken a course in Shakespeare at the uni. Chris "One Book a Week" Finch promptly replies: "Macbeth". David says, "Yes," because he knows as little about Shakespeare as Finch does. Gareth says, "No. Ricky?" David's face falls and he assumes a drunkenly surprised pose, which is spot on. I am in awe of Gervais. Acting drunk convincingly can be very difficult. But Finchy isn't done yet, as he, ever the logical thinker, starts listing all Shakespeare plays he's ever heard of: "Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet..." Gareth forgets about his own rules and says, "You had your go." Finchy starts desperately repeating that Gareth said the first person to shout out the right answer would win. He continues this even after Ricky says the correct answer: "The Tempest". Would he have come up with that, had he gotten the chance to list Shakespeare plays all night? Maybe, maybe not. It's not one of the best-known Shakespeare plays, and literature is obviously not his strong suit. Nor culture of any kind. Ricky is as triumphant as you might think after all the provocation from Finch, and he leaves the stage shouting, "That's Blockbusters!" Gareth gives him a bottle of champagne and tries to announce the winners, but Finchy's bitterness over the issue isn't over. Gareth keeps smiling and looking at the winners, not making eye contact with Finchy, because he doesn't have enough leadership skills to calmly tell an angry person to return to his seat. Ricky and Tim wave and people cheer at them. The camera pans on David, who's doing his best to not look too disappointed on camera. He stares ahead blankly and rubs his chin. Back at the table, Finchy looks at David despisingly, obviously pinning it all on him. David looks flustered and embarrassed. Poor David. Finchy is an asshole, but David's just sad.

At the pub counter, The Poor Losers walk up and Ricky teases Finchy: "Was it Hamlet, Machbet or Lear..?" Finchy tells him next time he thinks of the questions "and you can have this fat bastard." That's damn cold. "Banter," says David, trying to play it off, but Finchy shows his truly ugly side. He says it's not banter, and asks David to tell people what he answered to the question: "Which Cuban leader has been in power since the revolution in 1959?" David looks duly embarrassed, but when Finchy insists he admits his reply was Fray Bentos. Someone - Ricky? - laughs immaturely off-camera. Finchy cruelly tells David he's a waste of space and the reason the company's doing badly. I hate him. I mean, this episode shows what a sad man with a sad life he really is, and how he's really a lot like David. But David doesn't purposely humiliate his so-called best friend in front of his employees. I'm gonna quote David from the Christmas special: "Chris? Why don't you fuck off." In this episode, David just looks sad, and I feel like I should hate him for being an enabler to Finchy's shitty behaviour, but I feel too sorry for him. He has a really low self-esteem and hanging out with Finchy makes him feel like he's worth something, if only through association with someone "cool". And as always, when people choose friends on that basis, he's chosen someone utterly lame and mean for it.

Dawn shows her humanity by sticking up for David: "Don't get at him just cause they beat you." She shouldn't have said that last part though, as Finchy's testosterone level immediately seems to go up and he says he could list 50 things he's better at. "Like what?" says Dawn. Finchy takes this as a sign that he needs to show he's The Man, and his drunken brain comes up with "Throwing". Dawn laughs, so he starts telling this inane story about how he once threw a copper kettle over a pub in Chichester. David stands next to him nodding, obviously proud of his "friend" who just humiliated him. David's eyes go up and down when Finchy motions how he put his tie around the kettle and it went over the pub, complete with sound effects. Gareth the idiot ASKS if it went over. Finchy shows the same motion again. "Obviously," says Gareth, as if he knew all along. He gets excited and starts explaining how that's an official territorial army method, even if he wouldn't use a tie. "Right. Would you use a kettle?" asks Dawn and bursts into laughter again as Gareth says he'd use an "equivalent", like a coconut. It's cute how Dawn is also obviously drunk in this scene, and she's just winding up Gareth again without him noticing.

Finchy grabs onto his last desperate chance at winning the quiz: he will throw anything the others choose over the pub, and if he succeeds, he won the quiz. "New challenge! Double or quit!" says David. That's not double or quit. That's just "stupid and/or desperate". Then he says "That was the real quiz" several times. This is ridiculous. Ricky agrees with me, as he says, "You really are a couple of sad little men, aren't you?" I admire him for telling his boss that to his face. Gareth defends them by saying, "He's thrown a kettle over a pub. What have you done?" Awesome. Finchy and David keep insisting that they should settle the quiz in this way. Ricky says, "Gareth! Throw Gareth." Gareth makes a face at him. Actually, I'd love it if they tried that. He probably weighs about as much as a copper kettle anyway. Somebody starts teasing Tim, as he's "the birthday boy", and they decide to throw his shoes, apparently forcing them off him. The scene gets very realistically chaotic, as no one remembers the camera anymore. They force Tim on the floor, Dawn looks on disapprovingly, and David yells, "Tickle him! Tickle him!" and jumps up and down like the 5-year-old boy he is.

They walk out and Finchy proudly shows that he will use the shoelaces to tie the shoes with. "I knew it! Typical! That'll work!" yells an excited David. Tim is not amused at all, and neither is Dawn, but it's too late to stop it now, as everyone else is so drunk. Ricky asks how they will know if it goes over, and David tells Sheila to go to the other side of the house. Sheila, always eager to do as she's told, immediately runs to the other side. Dawn would have said no. The camera pans on Tim looking really sad and tired of his life. Lee puts his hand on his shoulder as if to make him feel better, but he's obviously really amused. Finchy flings the shoes around by the laces as David counts: "two.. and three.. and four.." as if he needs a backwards countdown. Finchy throws the shoes and they go over the roof easily. "Oh yes! Looking good!" Finchy says and lifts his arms in victory. He's so sad, but I still hate him. Tim looks sad, tired, and unshaven. They yell out to Sheila, "Did it go over?" "Yeah, it came right past me!" yells Sheila's disembodied voice. Dawn looks incredulous, while others are cheering. Gareth claps his hands, looking excited. That's why he's the quiz master: he will accept this as victory, just because it's like the territorial army.

The Drunken Idiots engage in some extremely childish cheering and telling off the other team. "Screeew Blockbusters!" screams Finchy. "You're shit, you're shit, you're shit," repeats David, who's doing the victory dance. Then he starts babbling about how he's "the Boss, like Bruce Springsteen. Slough branch!" Awesome. I wonder if The Boss has a Swindon branch, as well. As David sings some Springsteen riffs while making weird gestures from his crotch to the sky. He's really drunk. He always makes a fool of himself, but when he's drunk, it's just a bigger than usual fool. Finchy lectures to Ricky about "respecting his elders". To Ricky's credit, he simply looks amused. Gareth, looking at Finchy with adoring eyes, gives him Tim's HatFM: "Throw this!" Tim takes it back, in case it might break. Some birthday. David and Finchy run inside to celebrate their "victory". Others follow them. Tim is left standing outside, looking sad and tired. Dawn walks up to him and tries to offer help in getting his shoes back, but Lee tells her they're going, and Dawn follows like she's his dog. I love Dawn in all other scenes, but when she's with Lee, she just turns into this doormat who has to do everything her lord and master tells her.

The theme song starts playing over the last scene, for the only time during the series. Tim sadly walks to get his shoes, which everyone else has already forgotten. Before he gets to the other side, however, Gareth runs up and tries to kick the Large Inflatable Cock over the pub. It falls back, and Tim gives Gareth a long look. After glancing at the camera, Gareth gleefully runs back inside. That was classic. Some great acting from Mackenzie Crook in this episode. Tim is left finding his shoes and the credits roll, with the second verse playing over them. The last visual is of the Large Inflatable Cock, and I wonder if it isn't a nod at David and Finchy's macho bullshit. Probably is.

This is an awesome episode, one of the best ever. I must admit I felt depressed after seeing it for the first time, because I felt sorry for Tim, and the episode is really sad in tone. I think I just took it too seriously - in reality, it's a hilarious episode where the characters are all sad, but the sadder ones are definitely David and Finchy. After all, Tim might be ignored by his colleagues and unable to pursue the woman he loves, but he still might make it later on. David and Finchy are too old to go back to university and no woman wants to go near them. They're the ones who are really stuck, and they're so in denial they're not even seeing it. Nothing points that out more subtly than this episode. And the saddest of all? Gareth, who is so much younger and is already like them. Finchy was just desperate - on some level, he knew throwing the kettle over the pub doesn't make him the bigger man. But Gareth really thinks it does. To him, Wernham Hogg and the territorial army are the whole universe. In ten years, he'll be doing David's job. You know, thinking about it, it really is a sad episode. Because lots of people live that life.