From the moment Mark clocked him boozed up and watching Jaws (is Jaws the name of the shark or not?) on the morning of Elena and Gail’s wedding, to his final panicked looks in the back of Sophie’s car, Webb delivered a true tour-de-force comedic turn and finally turned around the feeling that this series has been all about Mark, with Jez taking a bit of a backseat. Mark also demonstrated some newfound feelings for his unborn child, largely because archrival Jeff was muscling in. We’ve seen little of Jeff in this series, save for the odd cameo and it made sense to bring him back into play here with his own feelings for Sophie forcing Mark to take action, not because Mark loves Sophie (“She’s a bit adorable, bit annoying. Right on the cusp.”) but because he couldn’t lose out to his cocky former colleague. Mark has a long history of acting irrationally in love when he suddenly fears he’s going to lose everything, even if that everything isn’t what he actually wants, so bringing Jeff back now potentially opens things up for the next series. Will Jeff want to have a say in Sophie’s new life? How will Mark react to that? Probably not all that well, given this genius insight into how he views him: “Screw you, dickwad. He’s my baby. Get your own baby off the Internet. Or by impregnating a woman with your penis, just like I did.” This second moment brings me back to the genius of the final moments of the episode, which really began with Jeremy’s foul-mouthed abuse of another driver on the road, followed by Mark’s assertion that he had become a sex ambulance for Jez and then ended with many, many more expletives from Jez to Mark as they attempted to get Sophie to the hospital. By the show’s final seconds I was in absolute fits as, in a weird way, it actually reminded me of my own driving lessons with my father (“Where’s the biting point, where’s the biting point?” “Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre. Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre.”) which were rather stressful. I didn’t nearly kill anyone, but stressful all the same. I’m only sad to see it come to an end. Read our review of episode 5 here.
