Hi!
Fresh Meat and I have an up and down relationship. Back when it first came on in 2011, I watched it mostly for Jack Whitehall, turning it on every week but never really warming to it. I watched it every week like this, all the way to mid-season three, never really deciding if I liked it.
I finally gave up in season three and forgot all about it.
And then earlier this year it appeared on my Netflix and I gave it a watch for a bit of nostalgia’s sake. And now. Now this show has my heart and soul.
I think this time it really came at the right time for me. In 2012, I was sixteen, in fifth year, with vague dreams of one day moving into a big house with strangers to embark on a new adventure, but I could never fully relate and a lot of the characters rubbed me the wrong way.
But in 2017, in the final months of my university degree, not in a house of strangers but in a house with my family, never having moved away, it hit the spot, it really did.
No, I didn’t have a lot of the same experiences but this time around I fell in love despite all of that. I watched it and it made me feel better about all my academic achievements and all my academic disappointments. I mean, maybe I didn’t get as good grades on my essays as I hoped, but hey, at least I never drilled a hole in someone’s cheek while drunk in a dental exam. I remember I was watching this when I got a particularly disappointing essay mark — I paused it, read my results, had a cry for exactly 2 minutes, and then turned this on to wallow in whatever awful thing they had got up to.
I haven’t even mentioned any characters yet. Josie Jones is my one true love. A dental student from Wales, she drinks a lot, she’s snappy, she’s angry, she’s so funny, and she has the best fashion sense. It’s a lot of jumpers and skirts, exactly what I like, and it’s nothing more than a coincidence that I really want me hair that style.
Oregon is the character I remember most annoying me but this time around I had a lot of love for her. There’s a scene in season 4 when she’s been given a vote of no confidence as student president and, you think to yourself, wouldn’t it be amazing if she sang I Have Confidence from Sound of Music (a fairly niche song from the musical, let’s be honest), and do you know what? She does it. She sings I Have Confidence from Sound of Music, and they kick her out anyway. She makes a lot of bad decisions, gets into very sketchy situations, but I love her, I do.
What I really started this whole post for was to talk about the beauty of season four. After a couple of years off, they came back for their final year in 2016 for six episodes. It was a tiny bit awkward in the first couple of scenes with everyone slotting back into their characters but it all fell into place and I fell even more in love. I was confused at first because this was their third year and they were talking about their dissertations whereas in Scotland most courses last four years, but I adapted. So, most of them are struggling with their dissertations, Oregon is struggling with being president of a campus who hates her, and Josie is struggling with being a second year and having to find replacement friends when everyone else graduates.
This all comes to a head in episode five: the greatest episode of the series.
I’m going to walk you through what’s going on with everyone because, truly, this has become my go-to cheer up episode.
Kingsley, who wavers between wildly annoying and somewhat funny throughout the series, is hilarious in this episode. Having just broken up with his older girlfriend after both calling her mum and realising she’s Swiss not Italian (which isn’t nearly as attractive), he panics at having not studied enough the night before his exams and spends the episode in a frenzied panic of eating Mini Eggs and planning a grad ball in a field with fire and falcons, an idea Vod has run away with and left him with the planning. Vod, also studying, deals with the security for said grad ball, and promises a very Liverpudlian bouncer that they can do the event and she’ll provide interested customers to buy their drugs.
Howard is panicking about leaving uni after having been there for so long. Josie is still panicking about being left behind as well as whatever the hell is going on with her and JP (a pairing that has been around since the very first episode but has finally been given the attention it deserves this episode). JP is having the same thoughts as well as worrying about what will happen after graduation, not wanting to take the boring office job his brother Tomothy (yes, Tomothy) is offering him. And Oregon, having spent the majority of the year involved with the student council, now she’s been ousted she now has to make up for her school work, and is sitting in the basement eating dried cranberries as she crams.
After that lengthy description, please, let me tell you what happens next. The Liverpudlian bouncer turns up, demanding the £60k Vod bragged about earlier, leading Vod to hustle the six of them down into the basement, locking the door, and cowering from the loud thuds from above as their house is torn apart.
Everyone is panicking, everyone wants to do well in their exams tomorrow, and then there’s Kingsley. Kingsley, who used to date Josie, has just found out about JP and Josie’s relationship. He’s also just been dumped, something which hasn’t been helped by Josie suggesting he has a ‘relatively low libido,’ and he’s still stressing about his exams. This results in him going blind and doing squats while arguing with Josie about Stevie Wonder not going blind hours before his geology exam.
I haven’t described it well at all but honestly, I cry. Every time.
There are some sad bits as well, such as JP telling Josie that he actually really likes her and that he’s taking the corporate job in London. There’s Howard being scared of leaving uni and them all cheering him up, saying how much he’s changed and improved. Josie telling Oregon that she didn’t get the scholarship she’s been dreaming of and them all crowding around her in a hug while Oregon has a bucket over her head and cries. Vod finally giving in and handing over £60k even though she’s in piles of debt and the money would change her life. In the basement they go through all of these emotions and then they come up the stairs, back to normalcy, and pretend nothing was said.
The final episode is great as well as they get their results (and wow was this episode both a godsend and a nightmare when I was panicking about my results), they graduate, and they prepare for the next chapter in their lives. Like I said, season 4 was my favourite of the series, maybe because it caught me just as I was going through the same things they were.
I’m sorry this long rambling post has in no way done the show or that specific episode justice. I was trying to get a post up yesterday to keep in with my every two days schedule but my mind was blank until half eleven last night when I remembered Fresh Meat. It was initially going to be my favourite sitcom episodes but that can be for another day.
Have you watched Fresh Meat? Do you love Josie? Please let me know!
Until next time,
Sacha x
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