Dating Agent - There is very little future in fabrication or deceit.
Dates is John Sullivan's favourite episode, and it's easy to tell why. At its core, the plot is very simple but the layers on top make for great laughs, immense awkwardness and sheer heartbreak. We also get some of the best from Uncle Albert too - it is his birthday if he hadn't dropped enough hints?!
The central theme and major plot points revolve around love - a theme we haven't seen tackled by Only Fools for a while properly. The quote at the top of the page seems to sum up the episode well. Del meets his soulmate but neither he nor Raquel are being honest or truthful, Rodney is trying to impress Nervous Nerys the barmaid by pretending to be tough like a hooligan, and Albert reminisces his lucky escape from court martial for crashing his ship HMS Peerless in to an American aircraft carrier USS Pittsburgh.
Rodney - You didn’t see an aircraft carrier?
Del - 42,000 tons of steel...
Rodney - In broad daylight?!
Albert - Well I wasn't close enough!
Rodney - You must've been reasonably close Unc - you hit it!
Del - They'd have stood more chance with Ray Charles in the crow's nest!
Albert - What I mean is I wasn't up on deck. I was in the radar room looking at the screen. I couldn't make head-nor-tail of it...! It was all blibs and blobs! Still, the Japanese sub had it away a bit lively.
Rodney - I suppose it didn't feel needed with you around!
Del follows Trigger's lead by signing up for an electronic dating agency (having been blown away that Trigger manages to get a date with an actual woman). Del is partnered up with Raquel and he immediately starts to blag his way through the date - and is calling himself Derek Duval.
Raquel - This is a bit like Brief Encounter isn't it?
Del - You reckon?
Raquel - That's my most favourite film.
Del - Oh yeah mine too.
Raquel - Really?!
Del - Yeah. My favourite bit was when the big space ship landed and all the little martians come out!
Racqel - That's Close Encounters....!
Del - Yeah, I love it.
Neither he or Raquel are being truthful - Del is much more on the charm offensive than we have ever seen him. It's the most serious he has been about a woman since Heather but this time he shows more overt romantic gestures, but these are backed up with multiple lies. Del also tries to become a freemason in order to help her career, blackmailing Boycie to nominate him in a funny telephone scene. Raquel says that she's at drama class when she's actually working as a stripper-gram. But she has a point that if she had known his real name then she wouldn't have taken the job at Albert's birthday.
There is a wonderful contrast between Del's date at the Hilton Hotel Park Lane and Rodney taking Nerys out for a "cruise" in the 3-wheeled van. It allows some fantastic juxtaposition and editing moments when Del says "my brother handles things when I'm not there" and then it cuts to Rodney flying the van over the crest of a hill getting air as he's driving so fast trying to escape his chasers. Rodney taking Mickey and Jevon's advice ultimately brings Nerys to tears and he causes an accident between a police car as he jumps a red light.
As Albert's birthday arrives and Albert defies all of Mike's rules it gives us some jokes before the reveal of Raquel as the stripper-gram booked for him.
Mike - He's started to slur his words. He's almost offended some of the ladies.
Del - How do you mean?
Mike - Well he wanted a rum and black. He ordered a bum and rack!
Del - Yeah, well cross your fingers he doesn't want a bucks fizz!
As all the lies are revealed by both Del and Raquel, Del is overly harsh on her as she provokes him by pointing out the hypocrisy of him being willing to "leer and lust over a stranger". Del ends up wanting to do the right thing and patch things up with Raquel but ends up getting arrested for Rodney's driving offense and assuming the police that come to question him are stripper-grams too sent by Albert. We won't see Raquel again until 'The Jolly Boys' Outing' - she remains the one that got away for now.
Tomorrow's episode: Yuppy Love
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