Each week Joe and Terry discuss Starz’s import of Channel 4’s Tip Toe, alternating between our respective sites.

Spoilers follow for Episode 4: Clive and Leo go face-to-face on a night of terror, while George embarks on an adventure that will have terrible consequences.

Miss a review? Episode 1 / 2 / 3

TERRY

Well, Joe, this is another week that feels like two episodes have been smooshed together, creating a jarring transition in tones…for me at least. I think because this episode doesn’t follow the typical three act structure, we should start with the first 20ish minutes, which is a long, tense and sometimes awkwardly written conversation between Clive (David Morrissey) and Leo (Alan Cumming).

An aside: The very brief cold open this week showcases Stephanie (Elizabeth Berrington) and Zee’s (Iz Hesketh) point of view of the killing of Leo. Stephanie tries to hold his front door closed as a bunch of angry and probably drunk football fans attempt to force their way inside. This confirms my suspicions that Clive’s football friends were involved. Honestly wouldn’t even be surprised if Clive wasn’t even there and comes onto the scene after it’s happened.

The episode proper begins with Clive inside Leo’s house and Leo telling him to get the fuck out. Leo immediately calls the police and begins telling them there’s a man inside his house, only to be shown pictures of Leo and George (Jackson Connor) texting each other. Throughout the series, Leo and his friends have talked about how they are queer people in a society where a violent minority believes they’re groomers or pedophiles, pointing to the fact that they can’t rely on the police and the institutions of power to protect them. So, seeing the text messages, Leo apologizes to the police, but repeatedly names his neighbor Clive Goss and the address…making sure the line is recorded in case things go bad.

Clive forces Leo to come inside to have a conversation. And here I thought, Joe, that the rest of the episode would focus on this man-to-man, father-figure-to-bad-father discussion. Turns out we only got about 20 minutes of the episode…but what a tense 20 minutes!

It starts out with Clive shouting with incredible menace, “Did you fuck my son?” It was such a confronting bit of dialogue that was followed up by an equally pissed off “NO!” from Leo. What follows is the funniest part of this episode (maybe the whole series): Clive stands in Leo’s kitchen with the overhead lights on. When Leo enters and determines that he’s not going to be immediately murdered, the first thing he does is turn off one of the overhead lights and then goes around, turning on the underlighting and lamps. Even when it’s tense - as Leo slinks very close to Clive to turn on one of the lights, holding up his hands to show he’s not doing anything - this is hilarious!

Leaning into the macho man conversation trope, Leo also hilariously grabs some whiskey and two whiskey glasses. He sloppily pours them each a draw before the conversation immediately nosedives. After apologizing for texting his son, Leo explains about finding George on the apps and that he shouldn’t be on the apps. When he says that George texted him, Clive slams him against the cupboards, breaking a whiskey glass in the process.

From here, the conversation volleys back and forth between the two men as they each bring up the other’s wrongs, real or imagined, and bicker about it. The topics range from conspiracy theories of Leo telepathically turning George gay to Clive discussing George’s almost-deadly birth, with detours about weakness and strength and feelings of shame, then on to Leo’s own story about three young queer people who took their lives during lockdown (followed by Clive’s COVID denial conspiracies).

It’s a lot! Some of it worked for me, some of it didn’t.

The biggest annoyance is that Russell T Davies has been painting his characters in such interesting shades of gray throughout the series. Last episode, I commended him for the way in which he made it so that we could understand Clive better but also do everything in the script’s power to do the opposite of creating empathy with him.

This episode, however, I think Clive has been taken too far into stereotype. He’s not just a racist, a bigot and a homophobe; he also watches violence porn. Oh, and he doesn’t believe that COVID was real…or vaccines in general…oh, and, um…HIV is also fake? and he thinks that all queer people are groomers.

It’s like…we get it. Any single one of those would have been enough, Russell.

But over to you Joe. What are your thoughts about this intense Mass-like discussion about straightness and queerness? Did you love Alan’s fierceness and aggressiveness this episode? What are your thoughts of Clive as potentially a walking stereotype? Finally, we also need to dig into the last half of the episode, too…I guess I’ll start it off by asking if George’s first night of being authentic to himself bring you so much joy to see?

JOE

It really is something of a rollercoaster, isn’t it, Terry? I agree with you that it’s also quite messy - with a few too many stops and starts as they sort of talk over each other and try to get their own verbal jabs in. Perhaps this messiness is more akin to real life (ie: how people who don’t have common ground would actually bicker) and we’re just not used to seeing it depicted on screen, but it winds up feeling pretty overwhelming.

Russell is clearly trying to say A LOT in this series. He’s got a bunch of talking points and social issues that he wants to raise and these two characters have become much larger proxies for a type of person. But it sometimes feels like it comes at the expense of their individual characters.

Clive is the stand-in for a certain type of man (racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, but also blue collar, conspiracy theorist, etc). It’s a bit too much for any single character but Russell is forcing it because he wants to engage in these dialogues. It’s the quiet part out loud that has increasingly come to dominate cultural discourse, and it’s refreshing that someone is finally laying all of the bullshit out on the table, but it is sometimes…a little inelegant?

With that said, I can’t commend Morrissey and Cummings enough for their dedicated performances because they are GOING for it. Morrissey, in particular, is really spectacular in these scenes; I’ve said before that Clive’s unpredictability makes him scary (to the point that when Leo admits his neighbour frightens him, I felt that).

I also like that Leo can be a hard character to like. When his back is up against the wall, he tends to lash out and Cummings has found interesting ways of capturing both the fear, the spite, and the desperation in these moments. I couldn’t help but wince when Leo spat out “you’ve failed your son” or when he asks why he’s never heard Clive and Marie (Pooky Quesnel) having sex. We know he shouldn’t be saying this (maybe he does, too) but Leo just can’t help himself.

The rest of the episode is definitely less explosive. The two men retreat to their separate corners (Clive smokes outside as Joseph Evans’s Saul and Marie stare, but then the men find themselves back in each other’s orbit when Clive shows up at the bar to finish putting up the stage lighting. It’s a good opportunity to get the bar staff back in the mix as everyone shares a similar reaction to Stephanie: urging Leo to report the home invasion; accompanying him so he’s never alone with Clive; and generally keeping an eye out.

I found it interesting that Clive stuck around Canal Street afterwards. It’s (maybe?) a sign of incremental growth - or maybe he’s just internalized some of Leo’s talking points - that he’s willingly submitting to some exposure therapy by spending time around the queer people he obviously has assumptions about.

What follows is a slightly made-for-television moment as Clive returns to Leo’s bar and winds up defending drag queen Regime (Dominic Holmes) from her straight student (introduced back in episode one) when he attacks her. See, Tip Toe suggests, Clive isn’t all bad (never mind that he’ll go on to, yes, both suggest AIDS is a hoax and tentatively start masturbating to videos of Regime performing).

But Terry, I’ll kick it back to you to unpack George’s “coming out” with Zee and Beryl (Lily Best), which sets up the episode’s cliffhanger. Do you agree that Florence is a much better name for Zee than Flo (girl, you can always abbreviate it!) And does your assessment of the cold open with Flo and Stephanie change if I say that I think those aren’t Clive’s footballer friends, but rather the Poles that drove Flo out of her flat in episode 2?

TERRY

Oh man, Joe, when Clive saves the drag queen, I was pleasantly surprised…but then the way the camera frames him, cradling her in such a pose, made me audibly groan. Sometimes the camera staging and editing (see last week’s Clive on the computer/Leo at the bar) bothers me with how on the nose it is. It veers too close to camp considering how serious the show is.

Back to better things…I really did enjoy George’s impromptu coming out party (aside from the fact it kind of reminded me of when we covered Love, Victor and Victor went to NYC). Thus far, director Peter Hoar and cinematographer Matt Gray have framed the Goss household as a prison, full of repression. No one is able to be themselves, whether it’s Saul and his sex work, or the forced and performative masculinity Clive puts on. George has been living in hell and this is the first time in four episodes that he’s been anything but depressed.

His authenticity breaks through the repression and it’s joyful to watch. Joyful, that is, until Zee’s friends come up with the naming game to help her find her forever name. When Flo gets markered on his back, it was a grim reminder that Leo’s time is ticking down. On the plus side, Flo is such a great, fun name, but I agree. Go with Florence.

Okay, let’s talk about that cold open.

Honestly, the thought never crossed my mind but now I can’t not think about it. At one point, Leo breaks down all of the events that have led up to this moment. The small things piling up like Final Destination, making what happens almost inevitable. So it would make complete sense that the Poles would be another brick in that wall. I’m going to “yes, and…” you, though.

What if it’s both?

I’m trying to figure out how the Poles would know where Leo lives? Whereas if they are part of Clive’s rowdy bunch of football partiers, they get drunk and then they see Flo next door…how would they react? I think we know.

I think we might have cracked it, Joe. It’s a stretch maybe, but, again, the show has been quietly building towards this fated end, one seemingly benign incident after another. But here we are, at the end and I have to know…what did you think of the Instagram visual cue of a dolled up George popping up across town, ending with the Goss household? And do you have any lingering thoughts about the episode before we go over the cliff next week?

JOE

I low key loved the way the episode ended. It’s a fun (or would be fun, if we didn’t dread the implications) visual of how quickly (and, yes, nefariously) an image - even a well-intentioned one - can spread of its own volition. A cute little twink like George popping up in baby drag on socials? Hell yes that image would spread through Manchester like wildfire.

As far as set-ups for the finale go, this is interesting. Clive will undoubtedly find a way to pin/blame this on Leo, but the reality is that he saw Leo at the bar all night. I think, rather, Clive will revert back to his “you people” argument, that simply by allowing George and Leo to share the same wall and an admittedly misguided text exchange, Clive’s youngest is now an full-blown drag queen who is being passed around Insta like everyone’s new favourite bottom.

Obviously that’s the most dramatic interpretation, but I dare say that Clive tends to go with the most extreme arguments/opinions when it comes to the queer community.

The only other observation I had about this episode is how sad and put upon Marie is. There’s that kind of hilariously delightful moment when a drunk George, still in make-up, dashes past Marie and into the bathroom to try and wash everything off without being seen (of course she sees the “Flo” on his back when she checks on him). But then when Clive comes in, he’s so defensive, and belligerent, and withholding; I truly don’t know how the Goss family has survived all of the sullen silences up until now, Terry!

You mentioned the household has been framed as a repressive prison and I agree, but not just for George. No one is living their best life under this roof, except maybe Saul, who simply retreats into his shallow OnlyFans world for external validation.

So now we’re down to one final episode. We know Leo is murdered. We know that Marie is grief-stricken. We know that Stephanie and Zee are under attack. And we know that George is curiously tuned out.

How we get to all of this - plus footballers and/or Poles - is anyone’s guess. We’ll find out next week when we return, for the last time, to QueerHorrorMovies.