This article contains spoilers for Youth Season 1 Episode 7.
If Youth is your first Sharon Horgan series, you’ve likely realised that when things start going well for the characters you’re rooting for, she finds a way to pull the rug out from under their feet. And given that Youth centres on the harsh realities of life in your 50s, the worst is seemingly yet to come. With a steady relationship, a seemingly happy child, and a job she adores, Alex (Horgan) wonders early in Episode 7, “Am I having it all right now?” It’s perhaps the clearest indication yet that she doesn’t have it all, and by the season’s end, she might have next to nothing.
Sarah Simmonds (Killing Eve) writes an episode that delivers a harsh dose of reality to both its characters and its audience, particularly when it comes to the consequences of their actions. Alex spends much of the episode, for want of a better word, delusional. Things are going (too) well with Patrick (Rupert Friend), so much so that she’s spent days ignoring incoming calls and texts while hiding out from work. It’s like watching your friend enter a relationship, only for it to become her entire personality until she flakes out of your life. Only when Sam (Sharlene Whyte) tells Alex that Jessie (Maddy Hill) has been nominated for the Women’s Lit Awards and Charlotte (Ann Reid) has received a Lifetime Achievement Award does she finally return to reality, or at least her work responsibilities.
Youth clearly wants to make the most of Reid and Harriet Walter, and understandably so, as Episode 7 returns to Charlotte’s difficult relationship with her daughter, Liv (Walter). After Charlotte denies having a daughter during a podcast appearance, Liv meets with Alex to discuss issuing a press release to set the record straight. The irony is that Alex tells Liv she sees everything she does for Charlotte, even if Charlotte never will, when Alex’s own sister is left to care for their parents. Her advice that Liv should stop expecting recognition from her mother and start making herself happy isn’t necessarily wrong, but it rings hollow coming from someone who has spent days ignoring those around her to prioritise her own happiness. Alex might believe she’s finally figured things out, but Episode 7 makes it hard to share her optimism.
Her treatment of Jessie only reinforces this. When the two finally meet in Alex’s office, Jessie is unaware of her nomination and has moved into a hotel because she believes she has a stalker. Alex rightly wants to involve the police, but when Jessie confronts her about her lack of contact, she uses her mother’s ailing health as an excuse. It’s hard not to find Alex frustrating, though entertaining, this week because she seems oblivious to how much her delusions are affecting those around her, including herself.
Although Episode 7 sees relationships put to the test, Simmonds still finds plenty of room for comedy, particularly through Sam and Frank’s (Robbie Gee) marital woes. Lorcan’s (Owen McDonnell) leaving do brings the three couples and Ruari (Aran Murphy) together, providing the perfect opportunity for their respective tensions to come out into the open. Frank has stopped drinking and started therapy following his heart attack, and his newfound commitment to blacklisting everything toxic in his life has extended to plastic utensils, blue lights, and his mother. Sam suspects she’ll be next. Her relentless digs at him, including “It’s water, Frank, we’ve all had it” and “It’s 9 PM. Bedtime for Frank,” are hilarious but highlight how little patience either of them has left for the other. Whyte remains the series’ standout with her dry delivery and sharp wit, and every minute she is not on screen feels wasted.
While previous episodes sidelined Ruari and his storyline exploring social media’s influence on him through incel culture, Episode 7 returns to it, though it remains underdeveloped. He and Plum (Libby Mai) have taken a liking to each other, but rather than navigating their budding relationship on his own terms, he turns to videos about erections and owing it to your partner to be “30% harder.” It’s easy to roll your eyes, but he is susceptible to this influence, heading to Tesco to purchase Viagra ahead of their date. To no one’s surprise, the videos, which arguably amount to grooming, have taught him little. He takes the Viagra too late, then stupidly takes a second tablet rather than waiting for the first to work. By the time he returns to Plum, she is asleep, and he scarpers, only for the pills to take effect on a packed bus home.
At least Ruari’s storyline offers something more substantial than another joke at his expense. Lorcan’s leaving do reinforces the cracks in his relationship with his father, especially when Theresa (Karla Crome) reveals that Lorcan has reversed his vasectomy and they plan to have another child. Horgan excels as Alex wastes no time in calling Lorcan a subpar father. For once, Ruari stands up for himself, pointing out that Alex would never embarrass him the way his father does. Murphy is quietly devastating, portraying a boy with no meaningful male figure to turn to and a mother he feels awkward about sharing intimate details with. But Youth fails to address this directly, overlooking how such isolation can leave boys and young men vulnerable to incel culture.
Even though the evening exposes problems in everyone else’s relationships, Alex remains convinced hers will be different. She asks Patrick how Sam and Frank went from being the happiest couple in the room to barely tolerating one another. Patrick’s assessment that they always gave off murder-suicide vibes is somewhat funny, but Alex’s insistence that they never end up like that feels ominous. After Patrick embraced everything that comes with dating Alex in Episode 6, he turns out to have a dealbreaker after all.
When Alex finds Patrick’s pros-and-cons list about her, she sees that her only con is that she can’t give him a family of his own. Patrick may have seemed too good to be true, but the revelation raises questions about whether he’s been as honest about what he wants from their relationship as Alex believes. It’s a gut-punch reveal, especially since Patrick removed Alex’s oestrogen patch at the beginning of the episode, seemingly content to be together into their old age.
Episode 7 is Youth at its most uncomfortable, but also its most compelling. Simmonds balances the series’ comedy with the harsh realities of middle age, while Horgan delivers another noteworthy performance as a woman whose happiness has blinded her to everything around her. With the season nearing its conclusion, it’s hard to imagine Horgan letting her off lightly. It’s also hard to imagine the season wrapping up in a 30-minute finale, given the numerous storylines left hanging, though this is Sharon Horgan, and she hasn’t let audiences down yet.
