Rosie's back. She's two years older but she's still the same person. She still throws things down the stairs, she still loves turning lights on and off, she still loves the letter X, Mini Cheddars, and Christmas (even in February) and she's even added a few new tricks to her repertoire. Throwing books all over the floor in the library, doing roly-polies, and stealing a dummy from a baby's mouth and putting it in her own mouth.
But in the second series of There She Goes (BBC2/iPlayer, directed by Simon Hynd, written by Shaun Pye and Sarah Crawford, and aired originally in July 2020 - with a special hour long episode from June this year), Rosie (Miley Locke) has something of a major breakthrough. Previously unable to talk, she remarkably, and touchingly, learns to word 'mama'.
But not 'daddy'! Her parents, Emily (Jessica Hynes) and Simon (David Tennant) are, of course, made up by this and soon Rosie is in speech therapy with highly capable and empathetic Abigail (Aurora Burghart). But it's very much two steps forward and nearly two whole steps back again. Progress is slow. Like Rosie, as Simon would say in one of his very inappropriate and derogatory moments.
But the small moments where we see Rosie make progress are the joyful heart of the show. When she makes breakthroughs in communication or when, in a flashback scene, she takes her first steps your heart bleeds and your eyes weep. It's just as touching when we see Simon and Emily reminisce about the early days of their relationship and remember the genuine warmth they once both shared.
There's less of that now they're parents of a severely mentally ill child but it's not just Rosie that causes stress and arguments in their relationship. Emily feels, correctly, the bulk of the caring falls to her and she also feels, correctly again, that sometimes she's looking after Simon as well as Emily. Simon, for his part, weaponises his incompetence when he's not turning everything into a joke.
Their son, and Rosie's older brother, Ben (Edan Hayhurst) feels the frustration too. He loves, and cares about, Rosie but he can't help feeling sidelined and even, at one point, comes to resent Rosie. Something he immediately regrets and immediately apologises for. Ben's a good kid.
All the grandparents are back. Grandad Gandalf (Nigel Planer) remains Rosie's favourite for no discernible reason, Grandma Cath (Serena Evans) carries on singing The Wheels On The Bus long after Rosie has fallen asleep, Grandad John (Philip Jackson) continues to berate the health and safety culture of our modern age, and Nana Anne (Jo Cameron Browne) is a little distant. Distracted, perhaps, by other grandchildren.
There's even a couple of scenes where Simon travels to Kilmarnock to meet his real dad Bill (Gregor Fisher, yes - Rab C. Nesbitt). Bill answers the door wearing a Pixies t-shirt and blasting out The Wedding Present before taking Simon down the pub to talk about Husker Du. Despite his good taste in music, Bill hadn't been much of a father to Simon and Simon, quite openly, carries a lot of anger about Bill's abandoning of him and the rest of the family.
Elsewhere, we're reunited with Simon's pub mates Helen (Yasmine Akram) and Barney (Justin Edwards), as well as Barney's new girlfriend Layla (Rebecca Gethings), and Simon and Emily's neighbour Chris (Ben Willbond, seemingly still sporting the moustache he grew for Ghosts) and there's a couple of new characters in kindly Dr Pritchard (Michael Gould) and friendly health visitor Caroline (Grace Hogg-Robinson).
That's the thing about There She Goes. Everyone means well. There are no baddies. Simon can be a bit of a dick sometimes but his heart's in the right place and we see, always, that he absolutely loves his kids. He takes care of his kids. To which Chris Rock would reply "you're supposed to, you dumb motherfucker".
It's all rooted in a very real world of Home Alone DVDs, Yahtzee, fish fingers, Iggle Piggle from In The Night Garden, Paddington Bear, Mr Tumble, and, er, Wayne Hussey. There are family holidays in Devon, a pub quiz night in Tring's Grand Junction Arms, and a wall mounted replica of Yves Tanguy's The Invisibles (which becomes the central piece of one episode) and there are visits from both social services and the police all set against a soundtrack of REM, Slade and Deacon Blue's Real Gone Kid.
Though not quite as laugh out loud funny as the first series there are still plenty of very amusing moments. A massive dildo appearing on a very inappropriate screen, a story of a drunken Simon pissing on a Gideon bible, a child's entertainer called Professor Fumbles and one called Captain Banana Crackers who hosts a quiz in which you have to guess the age of his (much younger) girlfriend.
Helen also makes a very good joke about Josef Mengele! But where the second series really ups the ante is when it pulls on the heartstrings. There are lots of very moving, and some very sad, moments. We see the pain in Emily when she realises that Rosie will never be able to enjoy, or even experience, the many milestones of life that most of us take for granted and when she has to patiently explain Rosie's condition to a young Ben (Oliver Gibbs) and there's a really tense, upsetting even, scene in which Rosie is rushed in to hospital after having a fit.
It's not the only upsetting scene and it's testament to what a well made show There She Goes is that you can be holding back tears one moment and snorting at a dick joke a minute later. Perhaps the most telling moment of all, however, is when Emily articulates her anger about people who, tacitly or otherwise, treat Rosie as if she's not good enough. Her question to them:- are you good enough for her? Maybe it's something we could all ask ourselves when we meet people like Rosie.
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