School’s out and is Alfie about to get everything he dreamed of?
Fraser has been suspended and Pickwell is desperate for control, can Alfie stop her?
Truly, Bad Education has been a hub of hilarity and as the series draws to a close, I will miss the class of Form K and their special brand of anarchic humour. I will also miss the antics of lovelorn Alfie Wickers who has spent the entire series completely humiliating himself in many attempts to woo the girl of his dreams, Miss Gulliver, and in this final episode – is there any hope for the pair? I mean really, any hope at all for them?This week at the terrifyingly poorly run school, the school elections were taking place and with echoes of familiar events.
Fraser was suspended for accidentally showing a dodgy video clip to a room full of students taking an exam and was fighting for his role as headmaster. Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer track replaced the usual title music. Gleeful about the event that led Fraser to his suspension saw Pickwell itching to take up the reins and run the school her way, but her plans involved getting rid of Miss Gulliver’s memorial garden for her brother and running the school election her way. Needless to say this caused unrest amongst the other teachers with Alfie and Miss Gulliver determined to fight back. Desperate to show he could win the election, if he could be bothered, Alfie enlisted his class in helping him win with Joe as their frontman with their Obama inspired posters emblazoned with ‘Maybe we can?’ – awesome. Pulling together his class as a crack campaign team, Alfie coached Joe to hopeful victory. In the meantime, a Milliband-esque battle was going on in Miss Gulliver’s class and Grayson was threatening violence to those who didn’t vote for him with the quite horrifying statement ‘In the Big Society, no one can hear you scream!’.
The election turned into a personal fight between Miss Gulliver and Alfie with Pickwell gathering plenty of evidence to dismiss them both but has Alfie’s class got some information on Pickwell to foil her plans? Fraser’s plan to get his job back was promising to step aside after two terms for Alfie to take his place if he helped him. His bid to retain his job wasn’t going well but were his fortunes about to change?
There were some great scenes in this episode with Miss Gulliver finally losing her temper with Pickwell and Alfie’s desperate desire to seem cool coming off as exactly what it was – desperate. Alfie’s defence of Fraser was brilliant and almost became grounds for his sacking too with Michelle Gomez at her astonishingly creepy best as Pickwell looking on, relishing his squirming. Michelle Gomez is an incredibly gifted actor and her quirky roles are deeply unsettling but amazing all at once. The students all played their part in bringing the show to a triumphant laugh out loud conclusion with the journey involving Mitchell referencing his attempt to put the school on Gumtree and using the internet to his own nefarious purposes, Joe’s speech as a cringe inducing delight and Chantelle’s dating advice. The students in the show should definitely get a lot of the credit for making this show as funny as it is.
Alfie’s songwriting career at the age of sixteen came back to haunt him in this episode and again it was great to see Jack Whitehall unafraid of looking a fool for his comedy. It has been reported that there is to be a second series of Bad Education that will air in 2013 and I for one will definitely be attending for this class. The only improvement that I would make to the show is to show more of Alfie’s personality outside of school as there is definitely more scope for hilarity with his character. Looking forward to series two.
