Review of Episode 4.10

"Births Deaths and Marriages"

Episode written by Mark Holloway


Ho hum. Mediocrity, thy name is "Births Deaths and Marriages". There was lots of good plot material here, but it just wasn't used to its full potential. I mean, think about it: several of the main characters turn out to be related (and not all that distantly, either)...Father Aiden and Ambrose get picked up by two hot chicks at the bowling alley...Siobhan and Brendan end up before the altar...Niamh questions her marriage vows... So many fantastic possibilites, but they all end in a fizzle. I think the following exchange pretty much sums up this episode:

Ambrose: If someone had seen us...I'm a married man, you're a priest...
Aiden: So?
Ambrose: It could have been...difficult.
Aiden: It wasn't.
And more's the pity.

I was told that one rule of thumb for Ballykissangel writers was that there was supposed to be one Quigley story per episode, but it doesn't seem that any of these fit the bill. Although Brian had a role in the first story below, it was by no means a crucial one. Here are the three stories I could make out:
  • Genealogy, What It Means To Me
  • Dumm Dumm Da-Dumm, Dumm Dumm Da-Dumm
  • Father, Can Aiden Come Out To Play?

    • Genealogy, What It Means To Me

    Hatfields and McCoys, eat your hearts out. Here come the Byrnes and the Dillons. To be fair, it seems that Sean knows nothing about the "feud", or at least nothing about how it started, or even that he's supposed to take pot shots at Eamonn's truck and rustle his sheep or whatever it is you do when you're a-feudin'. Eamonn is nice and sneaky, though, cutting down Sean's fences and stealing his grass (in his sheep's stomachs). And with Danny working on Emma the way he is, the Byrnes are well on their way toward evening the score of out-of-wedlock babies. Too bad the feud came to such a quick and easy solution. It would have been much more interesting to have Eamonn sabotage some of Sean's plans, and try to get Danny to take his side, thus putting Emma in the middle. Ah, but we can only dream at this point.

    OK, we have to do it. How exactly are Sean and Eamonn related? (And by extension, how are Emma and Danny related?) Let us proceed systematically. I know this isn't real logical format, but I'm no logician and plus I don't want to fiddle with all those special logical symbols.

    a. Sean's grandfather (Michael) married Eamonn's aunt (Nora).
    b. Eamonn's father must have been Nora's brother, since Nora's last name was also Byrne (she can't have been on Eamonn's mother's side).
    c. Sean's father (William) and Eamonn are therefore first cousins. (Their parents were siblings and the children of siblings are first cousins.)
    d. Sean and Eamonn are first cousins once removed (the "removed" stands for how many generations apart they are; Eamonn is one generation "higher" than Sean).
    So, we have solved the first part of our riddle. Now to our second part.
    e. Eamonn is Danny's uncle; or, in other words, Danny is the son of Eamonn's brother (they are all named Byrne, so again the relationship cannot be maternal).
    f. William and Danny's father are first cousins (see c. above).
    g. Sean (William's son) and Danny are second cousins (their parents were first cousins, and the children of first cousins are second cousins).
    h. Emma (Sean's daughter) and Danny are second cousins once removed, with Danny being in the "higher" generation.
    It's a little like when Luke found out that Leia was his sister, isn't it? I actually know some of my second cousins, and some of my kids' second cousins (the children of my first cousins), and I'd find be a little uncomfortable about my daughter dating one of her second cousins. I mean, they're family. Maybe they feel differently in Ireland, where, as Brian said, "We're all some sort of cousins."

    Dumm Dumm Da-Dumm, Dumm Dumm Da-Dumm

    (That's supposed to be the Wedding March. Try it. See?)

    Siobhan and Brendan. Brendan and Siobhan. Siobhan Kearney. Siobhan Kearney-Mehigan. Brendan Mehigan. Oh come on, why not? I think they're all perfectly acceptable. But in the end, Siobhan didn't.

    There was a double point to this story. The first was, of course, to give Siobhan and Brendan a chance to think long and hard about their relationship and the meaning of marriage. All things considered, I think Brendan really wanted to get married. Look at Brendan throughout the wedding, or at least as far as it got before Siobhan broke it off for consultations. He was proud and pleased to be there. When Aiden says, "(Marriage) binds those who enter into it to be faithful to each other forever," Brendan turns to Siobhan and looks at her lovingly. Then in the sacristy, Siobhan asks, "(I)s it what you want?" At this point, at the latest, it must have been clear to Brendan that Siobhan had cold feet, so why didn't he just agree with her and say, "God, no, I'm just doing this for the tax break!" Instead, he answers her question with another question: "Doesn't matter what I want. What do you want?" thereby revealing that in fact he did want to marry her, while still gallantly giving Siobhan an out. If he had said, "Of course I want to marry you!" then Siobhan would have been put in the even more uncomfortable position of having to crush his heart outright.

    The second, more interesting point, was to explore Niamh's thoughts on marriage. Going into this episode, she is a Catholic idealist who believes in marriage at all costs. I already suspected from Series 1 that Niamh was more in love with the idea of getting married than she was with Ambrose. She knows that Siobhan and Brendan, or at least Siobhan, is planning on getting married for practical, rather than ideal, reasons, and she encourages this because it holds up her rapidly crumbling belief that the marriage is more important than the personal feelings of the individuals in it. If Siobhan and Brendan, two very unromantic (in the sense of practical-minded, not in the sense of unattractive) characters, get married for reasons other than love, so Niamh's thinking, then marriage really is an Institution, and even if she is beginning to see herself as an inmate, at least she will have good company. But when Siobhan and Brendan end up not getting married, and are actually happy about it, Niamh is set adrift in a sea of uncertainty. Once she realizes that there is a choice other than staying in a marriage just for the sake of a child, or propriety, or the pension plan, then she has to face up to actually making the choice.

    By the end of the episode, and over the course of the next several ones, Niamh gradually ends up in the romantic idealist camp, believing in marriage only if it is also ideal. Unfortunately, Ambrose isn't a happy romantic idealist camper.

    In the end, the irony of the situation is, Siobhan and Brendan are happy with not being married because they actually care about each other more than they do about being married.

    Father, Can Aiden Come Out To Play?

    What a great premise! Ambrose and Father Aiden, prowling a bowling alley for some action. Actually, come to think of it, Ambrose and Father Aiden are just about the hippest dudes in Ballykissangel. Let's line up the competition: Brendan - stodgy; Michael - egghead; Sean - overabundant facial hair; Liam - goof; Donal - well, Donal; Eamonn - walking dead; Father Mac - yeah right. Ambrose and Aiden are starting too look pretty good right about now, aren't they? I know, I left off Danny, but remember I said "just about". And actually, Aiden made good time with the two Mary's (the two women in the bowling alley). They weren't named in the dialogue, but they were credited as Mary and Marie. I wonder if that was supposed to be a sly reference to the Biblical Mary's (of which there were several), in which case it would be pointing at Aiden as a type of Jesus.

    The whole incident came about because of Niamh's dissatisfaction with Ambrose, which is really her dissatisfaction with her marriage, which is really her dissatisfaction with herself. The most poignant moment in the entire episode came when Niamh complained, half in jest, that Ambrose had never taken her bowling, and Ambrose responded, hopefully, that he'd like to, but when he pressed Niamh for a date, she evaded him. At that point, it was clear to me that she had decided, without discussion, that she wanted out of the marriage. She just has to figure out how to do that without actually coming out and saying it. Coward!

    Lines That Pass For Humo(u)r in This Episode

    1.    Brendan: What are we doing tonight Father.
            Aiden: The uh...the physical expression of love within a married relationship.

    Ha! But wait, it gets better...

            Siobhan: You mean sex.
            Brendan: We've done that already.

    Ha ha! But wait, it gets even better...

            Aiden: Um, briefly.
            Siobhan: Very briefly.

    Ha ha ha! Stop, stop, I'm going to pee my pants!

    2.    Kathleen: 1923 is in the book that was damaged when the roof leaked.
            Emma: Was it badly damaged?
            Kathleen: No, just a few slates missing.

    Hold on, I've just got to slap my knee.

    3.    Ambrose: Just wanted to ask something. Would you like to go out with me?

    It's funny, but it's just *not* how a hetersexual male suggests to a celibate male that the two of them participate in a social activity together.

    Random Thoughts

    1.    Deepest line: "The first miracle performed by Our Blessed Lord was not at the wedding at Cana, but at the feast afterwards." Om.

    2.    Number of times Danny shouted "Uncle Eamonn": 8.

    3.    Food and drink swallowed in this episode: Cereal (Sean); Chips, aka French Fries, aka Freedom Fries (Aiden, Ambrose); Milk (Danny); Cake batter (Orla); Red wine (Niamh, Ambrose); Carslberg beer (Sean); White wine (Brendan).

    4.    Runner-up for the Did I Really Need To Show Up For Work Today award: Niall Toibin (Fr Mac).

    5.    Winner of the Did I Really Need To Show Up For Work Today award (tie): Joe Savino and Frankie McCafferty (Liam and Donal).

    6.    Did I Really Need To Show Up For Work Today award, honorable mention: Bosco Hogan (Michael Ryan); at least he got to attend the reception.

    7.    Scene I would least like to have helped with: Spraying the sheep's butts.
     

    Nitpicks

    1.    Aiden uses two different booklets for the two different marriage preparation classes.

    2.    Emma parked her bike on the street in front of Hendley's, even though there is a bicycle stand just to the right.

    3.    When Fr Mac and Aiden are discussing Siobhan and Brendan's marriage, the sun is shining brightly in one shot, then it is gone in the next shot. (Between Fr Mac's, "Or for charismatics of course" and Aiden's reply, "Yes Father.")

    4.    Sean was carrying Eamonn over his right shoulder, and when he sets him down, Sean is bent over with his right shoulder against Eamonn, but in the next shot, they are both standing up and Eamonn is leaning on Sean's left shoulder.

    5.    When Orla runs across the bridge with the armful of flowers, where is she running from? There are no stores on the other side of the bridge, let alone a florist's. Did she have to park her car in the lot on the far side?

    6.    Where were the promised "Births" and "Deaths" (from the episode title)? All of the stories were about "Marriages" (and lacks thereof). (I know, I know, duh, it refers to the church book that Kathleen showed to Emma, but still the episode was only about marriages.)


    Review by Margaret Pattison