What do we think is going to happen, will we finally hear about the fishing trip?
“OH MY CHRIST!” Winter is finally upon us, and the holiday season is looming; but for many of us this year, the anticipated Gavin & Stacey Christmas special will be the greatest gift of all. James Corden and Ruth Jones announced the one-off reunion episode on Twitter earlier this year, sending fans into a frenzy after over ten years since the hilarious Shipman, Sutcliffe and West families graced our TV screens. With a decade having passed since the show went off-air in 2010, fans are eagerly waiting to find out what’s been occurrin’ in the lives of our old friends in Essex and Barry Island.
The jaw-dropping Christmas special in 2010 teased fans with a noticeably pregnant Stacey sitting on the steps of Barry beach, alongside Gavin, Smithy and Nessa. The excitement to see the new parents is very real after viewers watched Gavin and Stacey struggle to conceive a child in season 3. It is generally agreed among the show’s fanbase, however, that the worst part of Gavin and Stacey is, in fact, Gavin and Stacey themselves. For many fans, the couple’s cringeworthy love-story is often side-lined in favour of the show’s more interesting subplots; the complicated coupling of Smithy and Nessa, Pete and Dawn Sutcliffe’s bittersweet marriage, and the iconic fishing trip, to name just a few. I for one am excited to see the now ten-year-old ‘little baby, Neil, the baby’, and how his parents have fared after Smithy’s romantic (ish) objection at Nessa and Dave’s wedding. The question is, would it be too cliché for their unresolved (sort of) love story to finally be fulfilled? Fans are speculating whether a happily-ever-after would be too predictable for such a realistic and genuine show. No matter the outcome, we can be sure to expect, in true Smithy and Nessa fashion, the same funny business as seen before in the corn-on-the-cob scene at Pam and Mick’s– perhaps this Christmas it’ll be Uncle Bryn’s brussels sprouts that are just the ticket.
After all this time, Corden and Jones have yet to reveal the truth behind the mysterious fishing trip. Ruth Jones revealed in a 2011 interview that ‘In the last episode of Gavin and Stacey we wrote into the script a flashback which explained what happened on the fishing trip, but it didn’t make it into the final cut.’ Perhaps, by way of a Christmas miracle, and with Corden and Jones making it onto our nice list this Christmas, we’ll finally be given the explanation we’ve so desperately been searching for these past ten years. Ruth Jones continues, telling the interviewer ‘I’m a big fan of people using their imaginations’. Is Jones hinting that the fishing trip, like the Welsh Owain Hughes joke in season 3, is just another one of the shows many unanswerable questions?
I, for one, am curious to see how many Christmas-inspired omelettes Gwen can fix up and how many bottles of bubbly the two families can sink in just an hour-long episode. Even if you’re not a Gavin and Stacey fan, join in the festivities by watching the episode on Christmas day. Ed Gleave (@EdHotTV) has described the episode as a ‘real Christmas treat’, so be sure to tune in to what could potentially be the best episode yet. And finally, in true Nessa style, to the students of Leeds this holiday season…
…OH, OH, Merry Christmas!
Image credit: BBC iPlayer
Alex Greasby