You're like the West Country Pablo Escobar. And her boyfriend.

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2022.  

#42 : The Outlaws

This comedy thriller co-created by Stephen Merchant returned on sparkling form for its sophomore outing. Our crew of lovable offenders found themselves in even more compromised positions. As the stakes ratcheted up, so did the laughs. A deft balance of humour and genuine danger.

I've seen a few snippets of this on Gogglebox and it looked good - so obviously I never got round to watching it.  I've got two seasons to watch, but I'm going to go for it rather than add it to my currently very sizeable backlog.

Season one introduces us to seven characters doing community service and, as one of the characters points out in a very meta style, they're all "a type".  And guess what - to start with, they don't get on.  Whodathunkit?!?   But as time goes on, they start to find some common ground - although the massive bag of money they find does make matters somewhat complicated.  Not least because there are some bad guys after it as well, so there's a surprising amount of tension involved - considerably more than I was expecting.  What I was expecting, given that Stephen Merchant is involved, is humour and it did a good job of making me laugh on a regular basis.  But what I wasn't expecting was for the humour and the tension to work so well together.  And what I really wasn't expecting was Christopher Walken to be in it.  I could write loads about this, but I'll just say that the series barrels along with a couple of nice twists to it and it ties things up nicely in the end, whilst leaving enough threads hanging for another series...

...which I will write more about!  Season two makes no bones about the fact you need to have watched season one, is quite happy to point out the threads they left hanging and starts with a massive new cliff-hanger.  Followed by "72 hours earlier"...

And we're introduced to the gang and everything they've been up to - which, to be honest, isn't an awful lot.  It picks up pretty much where season 1 left off and does a good job of resolving the hanging threads whilst quickly introducing a couple more.  The main source of peril continues to be the money, but in this case the man who owned it before REALLY wants it back and since they've spent it, this is a problem.  And it appears the only way they can possibly resolve things is to take over the local drug suppliers lines.  No, it's not in the slightest bit plausible but it's done well with all the different "types" bringing their own particular set of skills to the problems involved.

As with season 1, it balances the humour and the tension well, although episode 4 is a bit of a downer.  Episode 5 is very tense though - a last minute curveball throws a BIG spanner into the mix.  And it leaves a lot for episode 6 to do, which is manages to do nicely and give everyone their own ending - some happy, some decidedly bittersweet.

It's very much an ensemble cast and it's hard to pick names out of the line-up, but I think I have to start with Rhianne Barreto as Rani and Gamba Cole as Ben, two young people from different sides of the tracks, but both hopelessly lost and wondering whether the other offers them a way out - they share some tender scenes together.  Christopher Walken as Frank is obviously entertaining (and he interacts well with his "family") and Darren Boyd as John gets to show more depth in this season than last (I struggled to remember where I knew him from but he was in BBC Four's Dirk Gently, the first season of which was pretty good - the second, well, not so much).  The rest of the gang are Clare Perkins as Myrnia, Stephen Merchant as Greg and Eleanor Tomlinson as Gabby - they are all fine, but don't give the impression the role is massively stretching them, although Stephen Merchant is surprisingly heartbreaking at times.

I'm also going to call out Jessica Gunning as Diane who provides some good comedy moments ("less <X>, more <thing that rhymes with X>"), Ian McElhinney as John's dad who is SUCH a git (you probably know him best as either Barristan Selmy or Granda Joe), Grace Calder as Sgt Haines in a minor role that she acts the fuck out of and Claes Bang as The Dean, not because he shows any great ability in this but because it's the third time we've seen him on lists this year after Bad Sisters and The Northman.

The whole concept is very unbelievable (see also Misfits) but on that unbelievable framework there hangs a lot of real human personality and emotions which draw you in.  And, as previously stated, the tension works surprisingly well and isn't always resolved in the way you think it's going to be.  The whole thing looks good as well - Bristol is a fine looking city and it's well used, although some of the locations aren't going to be on the usual tourist itinerary.

There isn't anything "great" about this, but it's populated with characters you care about, it's both funny and tense and it draws you in - and sometimes that's far better than "great" telly, so I think this is well worth a watch.  At time of writing, it's on iPlayer but I think I saw somewhere it's not going to be there for long so hurry up and catch it while you can.

#40 - Unfortunately unavailable
#43 - Somehow both grim and dull