Julia Davis' new series Sally4Ever was never going to be subtle with sex scenes. They announced their full frontal approach at the premier and they absolutely delivered. You know, the episode where the black comedy introduced itself with a toe-in-the-butt, tampon-flying, full frontal nudity-having hookup between titular leading lady Sally (Catherine Shepherd) and now live-in girlfriend, Emma (creator Julia Davis).
Well, the second episode proved Sally4Ever, about its heroine figuring out her romantic future, isn’t slowing down anytime soon when it comes to love scenes. This time, Sally and Emma end up scissoring in the home of David’s (Alex Macqueen) mother… and accidentally leave the wide door open. So, David’s mom, who believes up until that moment Sally is going to marry her son, ends up seeing the very explicit liaison. Repeatedly. Mere hours after her husband's death.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
While this episode ender is relentlessly funny in the darkest way possible, it also reflects writer/director/star Davis’ growing outlook on sexuality through the years.
“What I like about it was the idea [the mom] had to keep going to look again. She goes three times to look. Which I feel is a very human thing,” Davis explained. David’s unnamed mother, clad in her conservative “little nightdress,” as Davis described it, does certainly keep returning to the hallway to make sure she’s actually seeing two women in the midst of vigorous sex in the middle of her home.
Like the final girl in a horror movie, the newly widowed woman creeps down the hall after hearing a strange noise. But, instead of a serial killer lurking in the shadows, David’s mother is hearing Sally and Emma’s moans, which only get louder throughout the scene. That is when she sees Sally and Emma locked in a very complicated and nude embrace. First, the older woman’s jaw drops and she tenses up in shock. She tries to leave but turns around once more. The second time, she fully recoils and attempts to flee. But, she needs to look one more time.
“It’s also in a way saying, ‘Just because she’s an old lady, why should she not [be curious]?’” Davis explained of the older woman’s conflicted reaction.
The writer, who also created the original UK version of Camping, feels especially connected to that question as she has now entered her 50s. “As I get older, I feel it more and more: you’re exactly the same person you always were, except your body is getting older,” Davis said. “You’re always going to be the same person. We just put all these [restrictive] things on old people.”
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Although David’s mom does have the freedom to investigate any publicly visible, extremely loud sex going on in her home, the episode-closer does take a turn: the widow ends up collapsing in her bed after witnessing Sally and Emma’s hookup. At first, fans are convinced the late-night encounter actually killed the geriatric woman by inducing a stroke, which is especially sad since David’s father died by suicide just a day earlier. But, the final scene confirms David hasn’t lost yet another parent.
Rather, a doctor explains, his mother was thrown into a state of shock, leaving her barely functioning. “I like that as an approach,” Davis admitted. “I’d feel more guilty [if she actually had a stroke].”
At least the silent widow can close the episode with one of 2018’s funniest sight gags: desperately trying to communicate what exactly struck her the night prior. But, all she can do is unblinking and wordlessly make the hand gesture for scissoring until the credits play, confounding every single person around her.
Never change, Sally4Ever, never change.