This week’s episode of Youth, “Desperate Measures,” opens with Alex as we’ve never seen her before: relaxed and blissfully infatuated. After Patrick’s confession in “The Holiday,” he and Alex seem to be giving things a go again. They walk up to Sam and Frank’s place with their arms around each other, kissing and talking about what sounds like a very passionate reconnection. Remembering the reason for their visit—checking on Frank after his heart attack in Ibiza—threatens to throw cold water on their flirting, but then they see him cooking up a storm in his kitchen. Turns out Frank had the “best” kind of heart attack you can have, and now he’s eating right, exercising, and just generally driving Sam mad with his overly solicitious, newly teetotaling ways.
With “Desperate Measures,” Sharon Horgan and her episode co-writer (and one-time co-star) Lena Headey take Youth deep into romantic-comedy territory, starting with the juxtaposition of established, taking-each-other-for-granted couple vibes and new (or renewed) couple energy. Sam’s trying to support her husband on his latest kick (healthy living), but she’s still getting used to his previous one (running a bar and being constantly surrounded by beautiful young women). Her relief over his recovery is now mixed with annoyance because he seems to be walking down yet another path that doesn’t include her—at least, not obviously. Alex, meanwhile, sounds ready to commit to Patrick: “I could see us dying together.” Alex’s excitement is so palpable here that I wish Sam had mustered a bit more enthusiasm, but she knows Alex so well that she might have been holding back because she knew her friend would immediately follow up that declaration with a bunch of anxiety over whether or not Patrick is really into her. Alex sighs, “I hate that I’m still doing this at my age, but I can’t help thinking ‘Why would he be into it?'”
There does seem to be more going on here than just Alex and Sam being in different places, relationship-wise. When Alex gets a text from Lars, her aborted fling from Frankfurt, she’s prepared to ignore it, but Sam immediately tells Patrick about it. Is she intentionally stirring the pot? Her dynamic with Alex has been quite thorny at times, though that’s usually been at the office, where Alex hasn’t always been at her best. Patrick doesn’t respond the way Alex wants him to, jokingly telling Alex to pursue the date: “You’re only young once.” Not exactly what Alex wants to hear, so from this point, Youth takes a few pages from Bridget Jones’s Diary. (It can’t be a coincidence that Alex works in publishing, right?)
Though things are still very new, Alex clearly wants a better understanding of what she and Patrick are doing together this time, and she is not the type to sit back and wait for signs. But she also can’t bring herself to directly say what she wants, so instead, she prods Patrick for their relationship status after sex, asking if seeing other people is on the table. He says he isn’t planning on it but that’s not a real answer, and neither is basically setting her up to answer the question first. Patrick tells Alex she can’t put this on him, but this isn’t some manipulation. It’s a pretty straightforward question, one she keeps trying to get him to answer. Patrick seems so desperate to avoid it that he’ll even bring up her UTI as a way to end this part of the conversation, but then he poses a pseudo-invitation to meet some of his journalist friends. Alex would look crestfallen even if it didn’t hurt to pee.
She tries to regain some sense of control through her work, dressing fabulously and dropping Ruairi off at the office (where he’s now interning) and then teaming up with an equally fabulous Sam to wine and dine Malcolm. As with Goblin Seed, though, Malcolm has other plans—he’s booked a kind of head-to-head lunch date with Sam and Alex and their rival Grayson Cole. Veal is far from the only objectionable thing on the menu: Malcolm ditches them mid-meal and they also end up having to pick up the tab for Grayson. Worse, Alex is already rethinking her whatever—situationship? relationship?—with Patrick, even though he calls her twice during lunch to confirm that she’s planning to meet up with him and his friends. Those don’t strike me as the actions of someone who’s noncommittal, or, as Sam puts it, “institutionally single,” but they also don’t clearly say “I want only you,” which is what Alex needs to hear right now. So, whether it’s the wine or the fresh rejection (on both the personal and professional fronts), she takes Sam’s advice to review her “options” and meet Lars.
Alex isn’t so drunk that she fails to notice Sam is out of sorts, and she does press her friend for info on what’s going on with Frank. Sam admits they’re no longer physically intimate: Frank’s on beta blockers, heart meds, Xanax, and oh, right, recovering from a heart attack, and perimenopause has claimed her libido. Sam is distraught because she believes her marriage is rooted in an intense physical connection, one she’s worked hard to maintain, and she doesn’t know how they’ll stay close without it. Alex does her best to reassure Sam because this is one area where she has a leg up on her friend and boss—and maybe if Sam hadn’t tried to get in all of her daily alcohol units during one lunch, she would take comfort in seeing just how healthy Alex’s sex life is post-menopause (recently anyway).
It’s a nice moment of shared candor, but taking Sam’s advice, both about the date and chasing a few bottles of wine with a Xanax, doesn’t really work in Alex’s favor. She passes out in a cab and the terrified driver has to take her home, then she rushes back out to meet Patrick and his journalist friends, Saleh (Yassine Mkhichen) and Ed (Eleanor McLoughlin). Patrick is still giving mixed signals, though—he hugs her tight and kisses her deeply in front of his friends, but then he doesn’t introduce her as his girlfriend or even a “my Alex.” Alex still tries to make the most of it until Lars shows up, but the creeping hangover and the confusion prove to be too much. She calls Patrick a man-child, he tells her he doesn’t want to play games, Lars proposes a threesome, and the night is officially a bust.
Alex again tries to find solace in work but Sam is still pushing Malcolm and questioning her judgment about Yafa Bargouthi. A promising lunch with Camille, who’s impressed by Yafa’s work so far, goes awry when Alex’s dad keeps calling about a podcast he can’t turn off. Desperate, Alex calls Patrick for help and he comes through for her in impressive fashion. He rushes to her dad’s aid, brings him back to Alex’s place rather than leave him alone, and is an all-around good dude in front of Ruairi. And just like that, Patrick’s endgame again. Maybe. At the very least, he’s managed to go from Daniel Cleaver to Mark Darcy in a single half-hour episode. The post-coital conversation in bed where Patrick evades the “where is this going?” question by being charming, plus most of his behavior leading up to it? Total Cleave. Helping her through a difficult situation and then telling her it made him feel closer to her? Patrick might as well be sporting overlong sideburns while making omelettes. What clinches it for me and makes this the most properly rom-com of any of Youth‘s episodes yet is what Patrick says near the end, as he looks at Alex and her family. His “It’s messy, but I like it. I like all of it” echoes Mark Darcy’s mid-movie “I like you very much. Just as you are.” It’s not quite as poetically phrased as a different Darcy’s “You have bewitched me body and soul,” but coming on the heels of an offer of exclusivity, it’s just as head-turning.
Stray observations
• • This whole thing with Yafa and Camille and Sam is bound to blow up in Alex’s face, yeah? The show’s pointed out on multiple occasions that Alex doesn’t represent the guy yet, and she hasn’t interacted with him directly onscreen—just typed out an email that we didn’t see her send.
• • Ruairi’s Wicker Man shirt impresses Plum (Libby Mai) enough that, despite the fact that he hasn’t actually seen the movie, she invites him to her film club. I cannot tell how old Plum’s supposed to be, but she doesn’t seem like another college intern so is this going to be a problem?
• • Freddie Fox is giving off a bitchy energy distinct from the one he radiated on House Of The Dragon, but the Grayson Cole stuff still feels too tangential right now. Then again, Alex and Sam’s work dynamic has grown more prickly by the episode, so he might have a bigger role to play.
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