BBC One’s Marriage continues to explore the highs and lows of a long-term relationship but episode three makes for the most uncomfortable part of the series so far, according to one Stylist writer.
Warning: this article contains spoilers for BBC’s Marriage episode three.
So far, BBC’s Marriage has been a quiet success of a series. It’s a non-flashy romantic drama that succeeds in what it sets out to do: show us a realistic and accurate portrayal of the rollercoaster that long-term relationships can be. That’s a major part of the reason why many viewers (including us) have loved it so much.
The third episode – which is available to watch on BBC iPlayer and airs on BBC One this coming Sunday 21 August – is where things start to heat up in the series. We’ve watched on as Ian (Sean Bean) has grown increasingly dissatisfied with his newfound life of redundancy, we’ve seen Emma (Nicola Walker) grow distant and we’ve even played witness to their daughter Jessica’s (Chantelle Alle) own tumultuous relationship. Now, the tension starts to pick up in Marriage and as Emma goes on the anticipated work convention that Ian loudly objects to, you can’t help but wonder what she really wants from the trip.
Throughout the short series, we’ve seen Emma grow coyer and more nervous around her manager Jamie (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), but she has kept it strictly professional. With the prospect of a night away – something that she has done regularly for work before – Ian’s newfound jealousy rears its head once more. He never used to have a problem with Emma staying away, she explains, so what’s different now? Unfortunately, Ian doesn’t have an answer. Instead, he makes comments about why Emma feels the need to sleep over in a hotel instead of in her own home. It’s plain to see that Ian’s new life of job applications, rejection, uncertainty and unexpected feelings of being emasculated has culminated in the way we knew it would – trying to assert dominance over his wife. But we know Emma a little better now and she’s having none of it.
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She ignores his pleading requests and goes on her trip, but you can tell that something shifts within her during it. Where once she looked at Jamie with fondness and curiosity, his swearing at the hotel staff over the lack of bath in his room, his rudeness and ‘jokes’ about her losing her job start to make her feel uneasy. We question throughout the episode whether she will actually go to this hotel room after the events of the day draw to a close and in a flashback scene once she’s home, we find out that she actually did – but it’s not what we think.
Instead of putting the wheels in motion for an affair, Emma is confronted with the very real image of Jamie instead: someone who may appear as cocky and charming but is actually insecure over his family, gets drunk and takes drugs to mask his pain. It’s not the kind of scene that makes you feel sorry for him, though. If anything, you watch on as Emma has to navigate lewd comments from Jamie about the two of them being in the room alone together. All the while, you just wish she’d leave but actually, you realise that sometimes you need to ride out your own inner voice – the one that tempts us with the prospect that the grass is greener on the other side, for example – to make up your own mind.
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This third episode is not only another example of a stellar performance from Walker, but it’s also a confronting look at the complete low points within a relationship. When Ian’s envy starts peeking through, as it has done in previous episodes, he turns to the solace of the leisure centre. Rather, he goes back to lingering around Maxine (Ella Augustin) again. The young leisure centre assistant was previously made to feel uncomfortable in the first episode and we knew the plotline would be revisited again. Ian’s awkward persona is the kind that is often brushed off as being well-meaning but his presence visibly makes Maxine nervous.
This time round, he complains about getting his coin stuck in a locker but when Maxine goes to help, she finds that it’s the same locker that has been explicitly marked as being out of use. It seems like a deliberate ploy to get Maxine alone, something that makes for an incredibly awkward scene. Just what is Ian hoping to do? What are his intentions here? While we don’t get an answer – Maxine’s male colleague steps in to help instead – it’s obvious that, in times of feeling lonely or sidelined by his own wife, Ian seems to resort to talking to strangers for prolonged periods of time and not realising that he makes them uncomfortable in the process.
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At the end of the episode, Ian’s feelings come to a head and he breaks down crying. “This isn’t you – it’s fucking weird … You’re up to your fucking tits in self-pity,” Emma tells him.
While the couple eventually laugh about it and choose to work through it, the scene offers viewers a window into feelings that many of us can sympathise with. Whether it’s feelings of inadequacy, uncertainty or self-pity, Ian and Emma’s relationship contains elements of all three. And once again, Marriage shows us that it’s perfectly normal for a relationship to contain these difficult-to-navigate elements – confirming that the series is one of the most realistic on TV right now.
Episode three of Marriage airs on BBC One on Sunday 21 August at 9pm, with all episodes available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
Images: BBC
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