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“I think you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to.”
“An overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding.”
“You make that sound like a bad thing!”'
The whole of this first series of Life on Mars has been building up to one thing and one thing only. Not Sam turning a gun on Gene (although that was pretty inevitable, too, and the idea that Chris and Ray had a bet going on it was a believable and touching one.) No, this whole series had been building up to the arrival – and then departure – of Sam’s dad.
From the first time Sam visited his mum’s house, his dad’s been painted as a bit of a charismatic loser. The football episode showed just how much he meant to Sam – and just how deeply his departure affected his son. Even Sam’s most precious moment was a memory of his father. Throughout the series, Sam’s been convinced that one action will take him home. Here, he was more sure than ever – stop his dad from leaving, and things will be fine.
The arrival of Vic Tyler shows him to be just what we’d expected. Lee Ingleby is brilliant casting, looking enough like John Simm to be believably his dad, and also catching Vic's easy charm. Yet throughout the episode, it’s clear that something’s not right, and Gene knows it. Philip Glenister plays the mistrust and disappointment of Gene with great ease and aplomb. When it turns out that Vic is actually the Morton brothers, it’s shocking, but the worst moment is him turning the gun on Sam. It’s easy to forget just how brilliant John Simm is as Sam Tyler – his realisation that he can’t change what happened is absolutely heartbreaking to watch, as is his reaction to hearing his mum tell the younger Sam that his dad’s gone away.
And it turns out Sam knew this all along – the image of the forest he’s been seeing throughout the series was a flashback to his dad hitting a policewoman. He ends the episode with some sort of resolution, and a sense of him being content here – for now, anyway. The series finishes with him going with Gene, Ray and Chris to the one place they all feel at ease. The pub.
I'll be back next week with my thoughts on the opening episode of Series 2.
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