(Series 8, Ep. 18) Thanks to the goal-scoring skills of star player Kacey Barry, Waterloo Road were in the final of the Unspecified Cup. Hurrah! But the problem was, FA rules (or some official rules somewhere) stated that girls couldn’t play in boys’ teams once they were over 15, in case they broke a nail or terrorised the boys with a mascara wand.
These things were not likely to be a problem with Kacey Barry – a less girly-girl you couldn’t wish to meet. But it went further than that – Kacey actually feels that she is a boy, with an unfortunately female body. So she was gutted to hear she wouldn’t be playing in the cup final. Tom Clarkson was gutted, as well. He knew the team had no chance of winning without Kaycey. His team just didn’t have what Alan Hansen would call “strength in depth.” Being a man (or woman) down, they even had to resort to Connor – who’d never played anything more physical than mah jong in his life – going in goal.
There was only one thing for it. Kaycey would play and everyone would pretend she was a boy and everything would be lovely, and Michael Byrne would forget to be angry with Tom Clarkson because he’d be so thrilled that Waterloo Road had actually won something. It would have worked, too, if a girl Kaycey had befriended earlier hadn’t kissed her on the lips when she scored the winning goal. This kind of behaviour is not the sort of thing that Barry Barry wants to see happening with his sisters, and he he said so. Loudly. There were gasps of horror, Tom Clarkson got suspended and Waterloo Road are going to be stripped of their win – though Tom Clarkson told Michael Byrne he’d let them enjoy the victory for a while before he told them.
Meanwhile, Barry and his younger sister were having a heart-to-heart, Barry-style, about her gender issues. This involved Kaycey saying she’d always felt like a boy and Barry attempting to change her mind by covering her in makeup in a locked classroom. This was a really shocking and disturbing scene, not least because Barry is no Francois Nars with the blusher brush.
I’m a bit worried about Barry, actually. He seems to be slipping from cheeky bad boy to sinister bad boy, and I don’t like it. Last week he seemed to be developing a bit of a crush on The Radiant Sian (and who can blame him?). This week they had a bit of a show-down and he was rather scary. At the end of the episode he followed her home and stood outside looking threatening. This is not what I want from Barry, who I think needs to occupy more the Finn Sharkey end of the Finn Sharkey/Kyle Stack continuum.
While all this was going on, Connor and Emo Imogen started and ended the episode smiling – honestly, they did. In the middle they had a falling-out because she wouldn’t wear her engagement ring in public. She made it up to him by fashioning an amulet for him, made of the congealed tears of baby dragons and the fingernails of ancient shepherds. Scout helped. Connor loved it. And they even had time to do some matchmaking between Jane Beale and Michael Byrne, because miserable people in love always want other miserable people to be in love too.
Posted by PLA (more Waterloo Road here)
HOLBY CITY BEHIND THE SCREEN
pauseliveaction 
I’m sorry but since when did rules bother Monsieur Byrne? No, I have absolutely no idea why I decided to refer to him as Monsieur, it just felt right.
I think a Barry heart-to-heart is probably very different from your ever age family bonding session, I doubt many civilised conversations occur in that household…
Emo Imogen is such a wonderful nickname for Imogen! It suits her so well! The accents in waterloo road are currently really confusing me- one minute we’re in Liverpool, then Manchester, then cockney, then a posher part of London and then Scotland… It’s too multicultural for me to keep track of!
Anyway, I do love your reviews and I miss the casualty ones- will they be coming back at any point or have you stopped watching altogether?
Tara&Liffey
I missed quite a few episodes of Casualty, but picked it up again in the one where Nick Jordan left (sob!). THis week, I’ve actually managed to get round to reviewing it, too!
I think I might always refer to Michael Byrne as Monsieur Byrne – it does suit him. Which leads me to wonder what’s happened to language teaching at WR? Since the departure of Steph Haydock, Jo Lipsett and Ms Montoya, there doesn’t seem to be a languages department at all.
I don’t know if you saw Let’s Dance for Comic Relief but Barry Barry looks good with a ponytail and Kevin was born to be Posh Spice 🙂
That sounds like fun! I have it on Sky+ to watch later.
Seen it now. Good grief, Carl Au can get his leg high. He wouldn’t be able to do that in his school trousers.
I must admit, I hadn’t watched Waterloo Road in a while, ever since I felt the storylines get just that little too bit ridiculous, and then moving up to Scotland was just the final straw! However, I found myself with nothing to do of a morning, and so went onto Iplayer, found a few episodes, watched them and fell madly, deeply and truly in love with the Barrys, particularly Barry himself. I’ve had a thing about the scouser accent for a while, the Barry family addition is just perfect.
I’ve felt a little bit lost recently, in terms of the televsion department, as I’ve been tuning out of my ex-fave show Holby, and am therefore very happy to have rediscovered WR! I’m still not liking many of the characters, the sooner Byrne goes the better, but Barry Barry’s cheeky little grin might just have saved the show for me. I hope he does stay the cheeky bad boy I find myself falling for!
Also, I’ve seen Carl (Barry) in ‘Let’s Dance for Comic Relief’ and I almost died laughing! I’m not sure I can look at Barry Barry in quite the sane way!
Thank you for your reviews. They never fail to cheer me up 🙂
Thank you, livelaughlove. The Barrys are making WR watchable at the moment, aren’t they? I’m not surprised that Carl turned out to be a pretty good dancer – he has a sort of dancing way of walking. There’s a lot of arm movement.
Barry and Connor: creepy duo in the making. Imogen – poor deluded soul who doesn’t have to explain everything to C, nor should she limit her friendship pool..
At least she has Dynasty Barry.
Barry was in Earl territory this week almost! Creepy creepy! This series was slipping for me but I did quite like this episode. I do think the Barry’s have been a great addition and they’ve kept them fresh enough to not just be a blind copy of the Kellys (despite Barry’s Earlishness this week).
I too was wondering about the languages department, maybe, as Tara and Liffey pointed out, all the different dialects are enough modern languages for one school?
You’re probably right. “Good morning, class. Open your Scouse textbooks to page 25. And who still hasn’t handed in their Cockney homework?”