Jim is ready for Friday Night Dinner but are the Goodman’s ready for him?
The house is in disarray and Jim is angling for a dinner invite.
It has been fairly inevitable since the start of the show that at some point oddball neighbour Jim would finally get a seat at the Goodman’s table and this week the occasion arrived – albeit under duress and injury. The family home was in the process of getting decorated and with Jackie and Martin in a state of limbo after deciding that their chosen paint colour was a little garish, the paint and stepladders were still awaiting the return of the decorators. A tin of bright red paint atop a stepladder was always going to be a risk in what is basically a beige and cream coloured room but this is a sitcom after all.
Jackie was hiding in the shed after coming across a mouse and despite Martin’s claims to have dispensed with the pest; it invariably popped up at crucial moments causing Jackie to scream. Jim arrived at the door as usual and even though they dropped massive hints to try and get rid of Jim, he seemed eager to help with the wiring that Martin was looking at. However, Jim was a little less careful with the wiring leading to a terrible accident and Jackie being forced to give him the kiss of life – strangely without actually checking his pulse and breathing etc beforehand. Jim was revived but the family felt obligated to invite him to dinner to make up for the shock and Jim was delighted, if not a little over enthusiastic. Feeling that he should keep with religious traditions of the family, he set about copying them in as many ways as possible, even pouring salt into his water when he saw Jonny and Adam’s usual antics. After an incident with the aforementioned mouse and the hiding of the crumble, the family were hoping for a relatively quiet evening but Jim wasn’t finished causing havoc yet, and red paint was unsurprisingly tipped onto Jim and his subsequent shower caused more chaos. Seeing a window of opportunity to spend more time with the family by exploiting injury, Jim had one final trick up his sleeve in order to try and stay longer.
As every episode, this started gently leading into all out mayhem like any good sitcom and Friday Night Dinner has been a particular favourite of mine due to the slow build up to the peak of hilarity in each episode. Each show built to this final episode and the end of series two was indeed a comic triumph. The writing and acting in this comedy is superb and each character brings something fresh and interesting to the show. Let’s hope that there is more to come from this brilliant sitcom in the future.
