This Country (2017–…): Season 3, Episode 1 - Episode #3.1 - full transcript

Erm, yes, well,

since you were last here,
we had some very sad news.

About a month ago...
...Michael Slugette - Slugs...

...unfortunately passed away
after a long battle with his health.

Yeah, it was really sad.

Like, there was so many times
that you'd think,

"This has gotta be it now, surely?"

And then he'd get a second wind.

Yeah.

And then a third wind and a fourth wind.

I actually lost count of how many winds
he had by the end,



but I think he was on something like
his 26th wind.

Yeah.

And we saw him not long before
he passed away, didn't we?

Yeah.

The last words he ever said to us was,

"Do you guys fancy doing
a zombie escape room

"in Swindon on Saturday?"

But, unfortunately, he passed away
on the Friday, didn't he?

Yeah.

Which was sort of a relief, in a way.

Yeah.

Bless him.

It's weird,
because I didn't think that I'd miss him,

but I actually really miss him.



Kerry! Griff's here!

Yeah. Yeah.

Right, here's your packed lunch.

Cheers.

Yes, it has been
a sad time for everyone,

but in Kerry's case,

I'm absolutely delighted
she's started this new job.

It's given her a real sense of purpose
at a very difficult time.

One, two, three and commence.

Turn on the crusher.

Yeah, due to some

unforeseen financial issues,

work was sort of forced upon me,

and I ended up getting a job
at the recycling centre.

Basically, she got herself
massively in debt,

and I had to bail her out.

Ended up having to use money
that Nan lent me to invest in Bitcoins...

...and if she finds out
I lent it to Kerry,

she'll go absolutely spare.

So, yeah, I'll be needing that money back
as soon as possible.

Yeah, I saw a gap in the market

for pillow-stuffing,

so I basically went out

and bought an alpaca off Gumtree for £500.

Of all the mistakes I've made in my life,

that was possibly the largest.

Definitely the physically largest.

Yeah, I really don't wanna talk
about that,

rake all that back up,
if that's OK with you?

Yeah.

Welcome to the recycling centre.

You've got your metals,

your cardboard, your green waste,

your household batteries,

light bulbs, fluorescent tubes.

Over here,
welcome to my world of textiles.

We've got curtains, clothing,
shoes, bed linen.

- There you've got Simple John there.
- All right?

We've got Trigger over here.

He's always on green waste.
Ain't you, Trigs?

We call him a white man's Dennis Rodman.
Take a look at his face.

Trigger?

Into the camera.

White Dennis Rodman, or what?

That's uncanny, that.

Kerry's never kept a job
longer than three days,

so I've just been helping out at hers,

making sure she's got no excuses,
so I can get that money back asap.

So, yeah, I've just been
cooking her meals at home,

making sure the house is straight,

that sort of thing,
because, let's be honest,

HMS Lard Arse up there
ain't gonna be doing it.

Shit, that reminds me.

Sue?

Do you need turning over?

All right. Give me a sec.

All right, back in a minute.

Here she comes, the weary worker.

Just in time.

You hungry?

Starving.

Excellent. How was work?

Er, just work.

Yeah.

- That's it.
- When's food?

Just coming. I'll get you a plate.

What are we having?

Er, sausage, mash and peas.

Lovely jubbly.

I was lucky with them sausages, Ker.

£1.50 down from £2.50.

Got there just in time as the woman
was reducing them, Ker.

Yeah?

One sausage, two sausage,
three sausage, four sausage

and a good dollop-ful of mash.

Don't forget the peas.
Lovely, these peas, 25p a tin.

25p a tin, Ker...

Kurtan, can we have less narration
of the food

and more bringing out the food?

Absolutely. Understood, understood.

Here we go. Dinner's served.

- You wanna eat it on your lap?
- Yeah.

Just put another cushion there. Come on.

There you go, knife and fork there.

- Cheers.
- Let me know if you need anything else.

See that bag down there?

Yeah?

- There's something for you in it.
- For me?

A foot spa?

Yeah, I picked it up from the dump.

Are-Are you sure?

Well, it was either give it to you
or give it to the charity shop.

That is so... That's amazing.

That's weird you got me one of these

because I was literally talking to Carol
about... about foot spas the other day,

because she said she used one
and it sorted her feet right out.

She had proper hard, hard heels,
that was the problem...

Kurtan!

I'm just trying to watch the telly here.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

That is...

That's in good nick, that one, as well.

Happy with that.

Can't get on the bloody thing, look.

Leave it.

The dump was actually a much better

workplace than I thought it would be.

Like, I just love the hubbub of it.

I love the drama of what goes where.

I even love the sound of the wasps
buzzing around the bottle bank.

And, you know,

it's a great bunch of lads as well.
You've got Kimbo, Trigger.

Even the boss Paul's a laugh,
you know?

But my best mate, by far, is Griff.

Hey, Griff, do me a demonstration.

Get a piece of that tinsel
and stretch it out for me, will you?

A one-metre-long piece of...

Don't be silly with it.

Stretch it out, come on.
You're better than that.

When I first met Griff,
I wasn't totally sure about him,

I mean, he's not a man of many words.

But as I got to know him,

yeah, I've found a great mate in Griff.

You couldn't take that to white goods,
could you, Griff?

Yeah.

Lovely work.

He's great at picking the stuff up,
chucking it in a container.

I'm great at telling him
to pick the stuff up

and chuck it in the container.

And maybe in the olden times,

we would've been in some sort of
travelling freak show,

um, him being the side show,

me being the bloke in the top hat
getting the money,

making sure he's watered, fed, but he...
I'd take down the curtain,

and he does his job for a few hours,
gets the punters in,

but it works.

It really works.

Making a little special dinner
for tonight, for Kerry.

I got steak, chips, and a mushroom
and peppercorn sauce.

It's actually a recipe she chose,
I didn't pick it.

I just came down and she'd left
the Hairy Bikers' cookbook

with a steak and mushroom
and peppercorn sauce recipe,

so I think it was sort of a hint
for me to cook it for her.

But... yeah.

Hi, Kayleigh.

- Hiya. Sorry to bother you.
- No, no, no, no.

- No bother at all.
- Your nan said you'd be here.

Right.

Do you wanna come in?

No.

So, how you been?

Yeah. Yeah, not too bad.

Up and down, really.

Yeah. Yeah, I imagine.

It's weird, because I thought about you
the other day, yeah,

because I saw a little harvest mouse
on the front of a magazine.

Sort of reminded me of you a little bit.

Sure you don't wanna come in?

Yeah. I just came to give you that.

What's this?

It's a letter from Michael.

What, Slugs?

He left it to you in his will.

Do you know what it's about?

No.

He didn't mention anything?

No.

All right.

I'd better go now.

OK.
Um, well, you know where I am if...

...any time you just wanna...

Still grieving, I think.

Not her usual self. That's scary.

My God!

My days.

Look at that!

All the lads!

That's Slugs.

Look how young he is.
That's me there.

That's Kirk, that's Kerry.

That is Darren Lacey
just behind Kerry there.

You can see his nose.
That? Don't know who that is.

That's a random, I think.

I think he just photo-bombed the picture.

Laugh. It's the sort of thing I'd do.

That's brilliant, that.

"Hey, Kurtan.

"If you're reading this letter,
it probably means I'm six feet deep,

"not with a chick this time, LOL,
just in the parish cemetery.

"So, you and Kerry were always
my best mates,

"but this might have been more to do
with radius rather than common values,

"interests, etc. Just saying, LOL.

"But anyway, the real reason
for writing this letter

"is to basically clear
my consci... conscience

"in case I get ID'd at the Pearly Gates...

"...because, basically, Kurtan,
I did a pretty shitty thing to you,

"and it's haunted me ever since.

"Do you remember Newquay 2007
and bed-gate?

"I'd be surprised
if you ever forgot it, to be fair.

"Well, just so you know, it wasn't you,
it was actually... me and Kerry."

Newquay 2007 was
our first holiday after school,

just the five of us.

It was meant to be
the best week of my life,

but turned out to be the worst,
you know?

And I always blamed myself
for what happened,

but now I just don't know
what to believe.

This still works.

I'll have that.

Yeah, it's mad the stuff
that people throw out, you know?

Good-quality unused stuff, and I know that
it's meant to go to the, um, charity shed,

but nobody gives a fuck.

What's that bowl in there?

Yeah, I'll have that.

I mean, I picked up the other day
a lovely humorous golf clock

for the vicar.

Every time it gets to 4 o'clock,

it goes, "Fore!", and he loved that.

And it was free, you know?

Why go Christmas shopping
when the dump is my John Lewis?

- Griff?
- Yeah?

Pop the boot open, will you?

There we go, there we go..

...Them bookshelves I never thought
would break down.

Griff's here,
if you could plate him up some grub.

Yeah, so come in.

Cheers.

Take a seat.

Yeah, Simple John was winding me up today.

- All right, guys?
- Yeah. All right?

- Yeah.
- Hello.

Both hungry, are you?

- Yeah.
- Starving.

- Starving.
- Perfect. Perfect...

...because you're not eating tonight,
unfortunately.

- What?
- No, I put your dinner in the bin.

- Why?
- What?

Why?

It's just because I don't cook
for two-faced nasty little liars.

What are you talking about?

This is what I'm talking about.

What's this?

A letter from Slugs.

Go on, then, tell me what happened.

He... Well, we all know
how big a fantasist Slugs was...

...and he's probably whacked off his nut
on all that morphine

he was on near the end
when he writ this.

Just tell me the truth, Kerry.

Fuck's sake.

We were bored.

That's all it was.

We were alone in the caravan because,
if you remember,

you, Darren Lacey and Kirk
were in the games room

chatting up those girls from Liverpool?
Remember that?

So Slugs had this whacky idea

that maybe we create a sort of

Takeshi's Castle in the living area,

- like an assault course, if you like.
- Yeah, just get on with it.

Um, and it sort of spilled out
to the bedrooms and...

...your bedroom was
part of the assault course

where you had to jump up and down.

- Was it?
- Up and down on the bed,

so that the top of your head touches
the top of the caravan roof.

And we're jumping up and down,
jumping up and down,

and then snap...

I looked down and the leg of the bed
had snapped in two,

and we panicked,

so we just kind of balanced the bed
back on it

and then hoped that maybe later

- you'd get in the bed...
- Yeah.

...and then it would collapse

and you'd go,
"I've broken my own bed."

Yeah. Well, you... you were right,
weren't you?

Because that's exactly what happened.

- Yeah.
- Yeah?

And as soon as I leant on it
and it broke,

guess who came piling in?

"Hey, everyone, come look
what Kurtan's done to his bed!"

I'm not proud of that, but I had to...

I had to throw the scent off.

I had to cut my holiday short,

because I had no money left after that.

And those girls from Liverpool,
they fancied me.

They didn't fancy Darren Lacey or Kirk.

- Still got with them, though.
- Yeah!

After I put in all the groundwork,
teasing them about their accent

and pushing them in the pool.

They should've got with me,

but, instead, I had to spend
the rest of that summer, right,

working in a sausage factory
with no air conditioning...

...paying for a broken bed
that I didn't even break.

Well, what's done is done, innit, Griff?

- Yeah.
- Can't hang on to the past.

You're a disgrace.

You're an absolute disgrace.

Sorry if you felt a bit awkward there.

Yeah.

Well, this is why it's so difficult

to be mates with Kurtan,
because he never lets anything go,

and I think that's why
I enjoy spending time with Griff,

because he's very low maintenance,
emotionally.

He's a simple beast.

And, you know, Kurtan still has a grudge
against Tesco

for the whole horse meat thing.

Who can even remember that?

Like, they apologised - get over it.

I shouldn't even be surprised.

As long as the world's been turning,
Kerry's been a back-stabbing user

that will chew you up and spit you out.

Her only loyalty is to herself, Staffies

and the TV channel Dave...

...which, in my opinion,

is a TV channel made by knuckle-draggers
for knuckle-draggers.

She's been sitting on that
since... all this time.

Dear.

And I am... Honestly, I don't even...

I don't even know what I'm gonna do yet,
but whatever it is,

it's gonna be the worst thing
I've ever done to her.

No, Kurtan, please,
I understand how you're feeling.

That anger,

we've all felt it from time to time,

but you mustn't act on it.

Think about...

OK, I'm going to say this -

think about Jesus.

Think about the Christian teachings
of forgiveness.

I just...

What would Jesus do in this situation?

He would turn the other cheek.

I tell you, if Jesus was in my position,

he'd be wreaking havoc back at Kerry,
I am telling you.

OK. Look, in the Hindu religion,

there is this concept of karma -

the universe will right itself,
you do not need to do anything.

Well, what do you mean?

Bad behaviour will have its comeback
somewhere along the line,

- but you need...
- Do you think?

- Yes, I do.
- Well, how long would that be?

No-one knows.

Just give it some time.

You have to rise above this, Kurtan.

- You're bigger than this.
- Yeah, I am. I am bigger than this.

You have so much more going on
in your life.

Yeah, I do.

You don't need to worry about something
that happened 12 years ago, Kurtan.

No, that's true.

That's true.

OK, so try and focus on
some positive things, because...

Yeah.

...this kind of revenge and anger
ultimately will get you nowhere.

No.

Fuck this.

I know I said I wouldn't stoop down
to her level,

but I can't be sitting around waiting
for karma to do its business.

I need results instantly, you know?

I can't move on till I've seeked revenge,
unfortunately.

Um, yes, I was just wondering
if I could talk to a supervisor, please.

I'm not proud of it, believe me.

But at the end of the day,
I'm a very vindictive person, you know?

It is what makes me me.

Kerry? Kerry?

12 stitches he had.

- All right?
- Yeah, yeah.

- Can I just borrow you a sec?
- Yeah, yeah, sure.

Hey, did you see Kimbo's thumb?

Yeah. Yeah, I did see it.

12 stitches he had in there.

- 12?
- Proper smashed it, like.

Come on in, take a seat.

Yeah.

Cheers.

Well, I'm afraid that there's been
a really serious allegation made.

Right.

I received an anonymous phone call
earlier today

suggesting that you've been taking
items from the charity shed

and then taking them home.

Something about a foot spa?

Is there any truth in that?

No. No truth in that.

I'd never take anything
from the charity shed.

I actually swear on my mum's life
that I would never do that,

I would never take
from a place of work, ever.

Well, we're gonna have to conduct
an investigation, Kerry.

Right, yeah, cos, um...

Now, this may or may not
be relevant, er...

...but you might wanna check
the boot of Griff's car.

Why is that?

Well, I just...

I'm...

The other day, right,

I overheard him, er, boasting about
getting stuff from the charity shed

and, er, putting it
in the boot of his car,

and it's only just now
that you've said that, it's triggered...

I'm putting the dots together
sort of thing.

Um, but, yeah, you... you should check
the boot of his car.

You actually overheard him say that?

I overheard him say that, yeah.

Well, I'm actually relieved, in a way,

because it means that he can, um,
get all the help he needs,

because he's in a bad way, I think.

He needs help. Definitely.

I think he's a proper klepto.

OK.

Yes, I did want that money back,

but some things are more important
than money, you know?

People need to pay the price
for the bad things they've done

or they'll just keep doing them.

Bring back the old justice system,
that's what I say,

and it will sort out

a lot of other problems
wrong with this country,

like some of our leading supermarkets
putting horse meat in their pies.

If that was in France, that would be fine,
but we're not in France.

We're in the UK, OK?

No... No work for me today.

Paul Walthers rang to say
that he's concluded his investigation

and his conclusion is,

he's sacking me,

which is a shame...

...and he's sacking Griff too,
which is also a shame.

Yeah, I can't help but feel
a tiny bit responsible for that.

But, you know,
Griff just texted me now saying,

"Do you wanna meet at the pub for a pint?"

But what would we talk about?

You know? The only thing we had in common,
really, was stealing,

and that was more my thing
that I got him onto.

But it just goes to show, you know,
some friendships last

and some friendships don't,

but that's just the way it is.

- All right?
- All right?

Yeah. This is for you.

What's this?

The money I owe you.

From my last wage packet.

This is too much.

Yeah, it's for... to pay sort of,
like, for the bed in Newquay as well.

Right.

- All right. Cheers.
- That's all right.

You know it was me
that got you sacked, don't you?

- Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Well...

Sorry.

What's done is done.

You know that decomposing fox?

- Yeah.
- Its face has finally caved in,

if you wanted to check it out.

Yeah, all right.

Just give me a sec, I'll get a jacket.

- Ready?
- Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick.

That's madness.

The thing I learnt about friendship is,

you gotta accept each other's flaws,
no matter how toxic they may be.

- Come on, Lard!
- No, do it properly this time, please.

I tell you who'd be laughing at all this.

Who?

Slugs.

Yeah.

He proper pulled our pants down,
to be fair, didn't he?

Shit-stirring from beyond the grave.

That's annoying, actually,
thinking about it.

Just goes to show
that people don't change...

...even in death.

Very funny.