Sugar Rush: Season One, Episode 10

"Don't you just love happy Hollywood endings?"

Let's step back a bit: this is based on a novel which Julie Burchill wrote a long time ago. We shouldn't be surprised to see an ending which is not designed to enable a second series, and that's exactly what we get. The season ends dramatically, finally and metatextually. It's the last episode, and the narrative is finally liberated from the tyranny of consequences. Anything can happen.

Sugar has stabbed someone and is covers in blood. There are extenuating circumstances- it was an attempted rape- but she is still going on the run, fleeing, with nothing in particular planned, to the only possible destination: London. Kim, still infatuated, goes with her, and both of them irrevocably outlaw themselves by stealing a car.

Both of them are outside the law and doomed to capture and consequences; all that matters is how they spend the few hours before that happens. They talk; Kim tries to tell Sugar that she's wasting herself on useless men who don't care about her, but it's no good; the series has always had a subtext of social class, and it is here that Sugar points out that she and Kim were always going to have different futures.

The two of them illicitly stay at a penthouse in central London for what must surely be their last night of freedom. A lot is said; Kim loves Sugar and will do anything for her. She always comes running, while Sugar does nothing but take and take. But there is kidding, and implied sex. And then, finally, in slow motion, the police, Stella and Nathan arrive at the hotel... 

This is a perfect, beautiful, clever ending to a perfect, beautiful, clever series. Can the second and final season be as good...?

Sugar Rush: Season One, Episode 9

"I'm a homophobic gay virgin..."

Kim is still, for the time being, pretending to experiment with the fundamentalist Christian homophobes. Still, at least there's a nice Irish lesbian girl, Beth, who only goes to the group to pull: I love that!

Beth is extremely good for Kim; at last she has someone with whom she can properly unburden herself and, yes, engage in the requisite sexual tension culminating in kissing.

Things are looking good. Very good. Naturally, it can't last, by all the rules of drama. We end with a phone call from Sugar: she's in deep, deep trouble...

Sugar Rush, Season One, Episode 8

"OK, so the stupid Malory Towers gay crush thing had to end."

It's all change. Stella is, awkwardly, back with Nathan. And Sugar is over what for her was a casual dalliance with Kim ("We were on E. It's no big deal."). For Kim, of course, it meant everything. And rejection hurts.

So Kim experiments with fundamentalist Christianity, half-heatedly trying to "cure herself". But she's too intelligent to keep up the pretence for long. She's just gay. It's as simple as that. The bloody self help culture and homophobia don't exactly mix well. Ironically, Kim fancies one of the girls there. And sex with Tom is both meaningless and uncomfortably reminiscent of Stella and Nathan.

We end with Stella going to hospital for some reason and, awkwardly, Sugar sleeping in Kim's bed without warning. Two episodes to go...

Sugar Rush, Season One, Episode 7

"OK, so Sugar's worked out that I'm a rug-muncher..."

Again, a fairly serious episode which starts with Kim staying in her room and unable to face the world for a week, on spite of the fact that Sugar turns out to be completely sensible and pragmatic about the whole thing. The point is, of course, that coming out can be traumatic even if there isn't any great drama.

This being a fairly serious episode, again we get sone comic relief in the form of Matt, who is supposedly having his period. Nathan tries to have "the chat" with his son about manhood, but the problem is that he isn't very masculine. Meanwhile, the age gap between Stella and the much younger Dale throws up cracks in their relationship; beyond the sec they have little in common, and even the sex is no longer what it was once Stella's back goes. Reality bites.

Sugar, rather nicely, is a little bi-curious and is willing for Kim to show her about lesbianism. The men in her life have, after all, left a lot to be desired. So they go clubbing, they take pills, there is some nicely druggy camerawork, and... Sugar ends up kissing a man. Devastated, she meets Stella outside, who has come to realise how little in common she has with Dale. There's a very obvious parallel between mother and daughter.

So, both have gained a little self-knowledge. What next? The series continues to he gripping, smart, witty and emotionally real.

Sugar Rush: Season One, Episode 6

"I am totally off men!"

Guillaume has not yet buggered off; Sugar is apparently off to Paris to be with him, until she realises exactly what he really meant by "putain". So she goes off on the prowl. For men. Poor Kim's love for her has never seemed more unrequited.

Things don't go to plan. Kim intends to go to see Sugar and declare her love, but instead she shags Tom the stalker. Oops. But she goes all out to sabotage Sugar's date, right up to the point of dog kidnapping.

The ending, with Sugar trying to comfort Kim, is something of a turning point: she jokingly says "Well, maybe you like me then" only to realise that, yep....

Oh dear. What next? This series is gripping, and shows a complete mastery of tone.

Sugar Rush, Season One, Episode 5

"I was their French-speaking, gooseberry interpreter."

After the intensity of last episode we get much more comic relief this time around, as Sugar gets involved with a French bloke, Guillaume, with whom she is unable to communicate without Kim translating, which gives rise to much comic potential. (The best example is when Kim translates "cunnilingus" as "up the arse". But things are still very raw. And Kim is still sexually and emotionally frustrated by Sugar's unavailability. And she is, as she says, "sick of being the sensible one."

Things are awkward at home; Nathan, always a weak character, is unsurprisingly miserable, and he wants Stella to leave. He's finding it hard to cope. Stella, meanwhile, leaves the family home and is absolutely fine.

Guillaume is the first person ever to give Sugar an orgasm, a really big deal, but he isn't staying. Is there any hope for Kim? This is the halfway point of the season; I suspect there very much may be. 

Sugar Rush, Season One, Episode 4

"Just when you think life can't get any worse, you're a virgin with a sexually transmitted disease."

The tension finally snaps, in a delightfully and relievingly farcical way, as Stella infects the entire family with crabs and is forced to confess all to Nathan. This is a massive event and a turning point in the season, shattering the status quo in all sorts of ways. Yet Kim, of course, retains the preoccupations of a teenage girl throughout it all. And there are more dream sequences.

It's a fairly Sugar-lite episode, for understandable reasons, but we end with Sugar, erm, doing Kim's bits for crabs. It's not hard to see a bit of sapphic sexual tension here.

Four episodes on and the series continues to astound with script, performances and directorial style. It's superb.

Sugar Rush: Season One, Episode 1

"Nice tits!"

"Die."

It's entirely possible you haven't heard of Sugar Rush. Well, it was on Channel 4 from 2005, with just ten short episodes for each of it's two series. It's a delightfully irreverent lesbian coming-of-age story set, naturally, in Brighton, and based on a series of novels by everyone's favourite controversialist Stalinist Christian veteran of the punk era music press, Julie Burchill. And yes, I'm still fully commited to all my ongoing series. Tell you what, I won't start anything new for a bit, ok?

This was a favourite of my then-girlfriend, now-wife and we recently (ish) watched the whole thing together. I had no preconceptions, but I found the whole thing to be superb. The first short episode gives first impressions of being very, very mid-2000's with the opening titles, and the first person narration from Kim which gels well with the directorial style. It reminds me, visually, of Nathan Barley.

Kim is a teenage closeted gay virgin, just moved down from London. Her family is middle class, slightly bohemian and probably takes the Guardian. Her mum Stella is having a mid-life sexual crisis while her dad, Nathan, is a wet drip. She calls them both by their first names, naturally. And her brother is... eccentric.

The best bit is Nathan's unintentional double entendres after Kim has seen Stella banging the decorator, but there are many funny moments. It a smart, snappy kind of humour. 

The point of the episode, and the series, is Kim's infatuation with the alluring, fascinating yet rather direct Sugar- seemingly completely straight and, in spite of her near-RP accent, rather more working class than Kim is. This latter point will remain a constant, unspoken subtext.

This is a nicely done introduction to the characters and the premise, and it even has a young Andrew Garfield as Kim's hopeless male stalker Tom. And the toad on the hole metaphor for sexual orientation is magnificent!!!