There is a wedding, a funeral, and mishap with drugs, it is the usual array of shenanigans for the Derry Girls in “The Curse.”
An old family feud reignites when Erin’s family go to a wedding. It is made worst when Erin’s mother (Tara Lynne O’Neill) tells her aunt to drop dead and she promptly does. And Michelle, ever the wild child sets out to get a hold of some drugs.
“The Curse” is an episode that focuses on the parents instead of the girls. Or to be more precise it’s Mary’s episode because she is the one who has the conflict with her maternal aunt leading to everyone thinking she has the ability to kill people with her words. The episode doesn’t dispel any stereotypes that Irish people are superstitious.
The storyline with the adults is where most of the dramatic weight lies. The feud itself stems from the in-laws disliking Joe and takes out her hostilities on his offspring. It could explain why Joe browbeats Gerry all the time because of what he suffered. Joe gets called out for being an arse because he can be, but the aunt is horrid to Mary, Sarah, and their daughters.
The episode split into two halves, the first being the wedding, the second was the funeral. There was plenty of grounded and relatable humour like Sarah ruining the bride’s entrance, people debating Mary’s hat and the supply of food at a wake. James acts as an audience surrogate for any non-Irish viewer who don’t know Irish funeral customs, i.e. going into a room with the body. As the girls say ‘the English are weird.’
Michelle was the driving force of the girls’ storyline. She’s the one who wants to obtain cannabis and when she does use it which leads to the incident at the wake. It is naturally a funny scenario where Michelle inadvertently spikes a funeral and the girls have to retriever some illicit baked goods. If you ever wanted to Barristan Selmy stoned then this is the episode.
Michelle and James were the funniest members of the cast. Michelle acts as Derry Girls‘ version The Inbetweeners because she was the troublemaker and comes out with some amazing bullshit. As James comments, Michelle has an unusual understanding of the law. All the girls have a moment to shine and the episode had a great pairing of Sister Michael and Colin.
“The Curse” saw the biggest guest star in the show’s history (so far), Ardal O’Hanlon. International audiences will know O’Hanlon best as Father Dougal in Father Ted and he has appeared in a lot of British shows like Doctor Who. O’Hanlon plays the role he normally has, being a nice but dim character.
“The Curse” does have some similarities to the fourth episode in the first season. The girls get to perform a dance at the wedding, this time it was “Rock the Boat” and both episodes end with Erin and her crew getting kicked out in humiliation.
“The Curse” is a funny episode like all the previous Derry Girls episodes. There were a lot of funny jokes, it’s just a shame there weren’t more drug-related jokes.
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