RTÉ One/BBC4
On this week’s exploration of buggered Irish teenagers it’s Day One and Amber goes into town to meet Manga_Boy24 (Andrew Mullan) her borefriend or whatever the hell he is. Along the way she bumps into Squeak (Stephen Jones) the prison scrote who knew dead O’Donoghue. It’s only a brief encounter but like all Dubliners he is an expert thief and in their 3/5ths of a second acquaintance he steals her phone. He didn’t actually want to but theft comes so naturally and instinctively to natives of Dublin that he had little choice in the matter. Squeak walks into a phone shop and dumps the quarter ton of stolen mobile phones he has acquired in the last week into the lap of Charlie Chan the Chinaman (Dan Li) who you’ll remember from the racially motivated beating Ben recently administered. Charlie bungs him a few quid for the burners and Squeak is on his way.
Like all Dubliners he is an expert thief and in their 3/5ths of a second acquaintance he steals her phone.
So what’s the Chinaman’s story? He’s not from Dublin and has therefore never stolen anything and that’s possibly why debt collectors turn up at his gaffe to threaten his missus and stepdaughter. And you know what it’s like – threaten one Chinese family and 20 minutes later you feel like doing another.¹
Charlie phones his mam on Amber’s phone and comes across Amber’s video of her painting her room. “Cool!” he says and then who should ring Amber’s phone but Sarah. Charlie, like a dick, answers and says “Hello?” “Amber!” screams Sarah “Is that you? Why do you sound like that? Is everyone Chinese in heaven? Herro?? I miss you velly much Amber!” Charlie ignores what will be the first of several racist assaults from the Bailey family and hangs up. Nonetheless he feels a bit bad about withholding evidence in a missing teen case and leaves the phone in an envelope in the Find Amber offices where it gets lost in a drawer by a twat.
Not deterred by this Charlie volunteers at Find Amber. After a while Ben figures that something fishy about him and the ensuing confrontation prompts Charlie to confess about fencing Amber’s stolen phone. But of course it can’t be found because it’s no longer in the twat’s drawer. “Amber’s phone was used to call China.” shouts an increasingly enraged Ben “Who are you working with?”
Ben chases Charlie out of the offices then mercilessly stomps him out in 4:4 time. “That’s for Tiananmen Square!” he yells “That’s for inventing gunpowder! That’s for the Han Dynasty!” His historically confused pummelling of the Chinaman is stopped by the phone twat ironically enough. As if she hadn’t done damage she later forces her toddler grandson to throw Amber’s phone down the drain. What a sick bitch.
The verdict: Dead in the water, nothing left except the stench of what has gone before
Marks out of 10: 8
¹ Fuck you.