Joel Fry-days: Alice and Steve: Season 1, Episode 4 (2026)

*Spoilers for episode 3*

Hot damn! This is another really strong episode for Joel Fry. I continue to be cautiously optimistic about where Daniel’s story with Marni is going, and Fry gets some topnotch acting moments. It’s a return to Alice behaving incredibly badly and shirking accountability, but while she does some awful things here (and Steve does too,) it still avoids the heavy cringe factor of episode 2.

At the end of episode 3, Alice and Steve had begun to reconcile, and she made him promise to end things with Izzy. Right after he’s forced himself to do the deed and Izzy storms out, a bomb Alice had lit a couple episodes ago finally drops. Although she’d all but forgotten about it, it wreaks havoc on Steve’s life. It’s now open war between the two, who set out to make each other’s lives hell. Meanwhile, Marni tries to help Daniel open up more sexually. (This isn’t actually what it sounds like—I’ll explain further when I get to the Daniel/Joel Fry part of the review!)

Our character of the week is Izzy, played by Yali Topol Margalith. She’s both hurt and furious at Steve for breaking up with her, an action he regrets almost immediately—whenever he’s not slinging blows at Alice in this episode, he’s trying to convince Izzy to take him back. She attempts to prove that she’s strong, independent, and doesn’t need a man, although one of her friends points out she’s not getting off to a stellar start with that.

Because Alice and Steve have known each other for so long and been so close, they have all the dirt on one another and know just how to use it. They both can cause maximum damage: to their reputations, their careers, Alice’s marriage, and beyond. And because they can both be impetuous, they move quickly to blowing up their fragile truce instead of trying to work things out or make amends for what’s already been done.

However, within all that anger, the hurt still comes through. Steve is a pathetic wet cat of a man as he tries to apologize to Izzy, literally on his knees at her doorstep. And Alice’s evasions are in part because she knows she’s a mess and struggles to truly be vulnerable. It can be easier for her to lash out than to face up to that.

Steve’s opening shot in his war with Alice is to air all her dirty laundry to Daniel, who’s understandably upset at hearing about all the different times she lied to him. Daniel needs some time apart from Alice, standing his ground that he’ll be the one staying at the house with Dom. One thing I really like about this portrayal is that, as much as other characters paint Daniel as weak, passive, or cowardly, he actually speaks his mind quite a bit. Although he doesn’t rage or beat his chest, he expresses his anger and hurt in no uncertain terms. He doesn’t lie back and take things. That’s not to say he isn’t overly timid/avoidant at times, but Joel Fry does a splendid job of showing that Daniel can be sensitive and still have a backbone.

There are a couple scenes here between Daniel and Alice that are just splendid: one where his anger is burning pretty brightly and he’s able to be firm, and one where his hurt takes precedence and you can feel the effort it takes for him to speak. Joel Fry’s performance in both of them is just wonderful. As I’ve said before, Daniel isn’t nearly as expressive as the louder, more self-centered characters around him, but Fry does a magnificent job of quietly conveying Daniel’s feelings through his more reserved nature.

Okay, let me back up now and give some context from the last episode. Marni tried to hook up with Daniel in Antwerp, and he was completely blindsided by this. Once he finally managed to convince her that he didn’t want to cheat on his wife, she pried for some more information and found out Alice calls all the shots in their sex life. Marni told Daniel, “You need to get in touch with your sexual self, like stat!” and offered to help him (as a friend.)

So once again, Daniel is very upset with Alice and mainly has Marni for company. She takes him out to “cheer [him] up,” and the conversation quickly turns to her project to help him explore/assert his sexual desires. And look, maybe this is going to be about Daniel getting more comfortable voicing what he wants in the bedroom, which could either help him and Alice or lead to him realizing he’d be better off with someone who cares about his needs. It could still be heading toward Daniel having an affair with Marni or some sort of “Daniel is a ‘low-T’ beta male who needs a proper shag to finally assert himself as a ‘real man’” story, but at this point, I don’t think so.

And honestly, I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that Daniel is somewhere on the asexual spectrum. I’m trying not to get too excited about it, because I don’t want to get my hopes up. But while Marni assumes Daniel is just uptight/repressed (and is super allonormative about it,) his characterization throughout this storyline could definitely support an aspec interpretation. When Marni pushes him to admit who he’d want to have sex with in the pub or encourages him to tell her about his fantasy, he feels more than uncomfortable. To my eye, he feels at a loss. Does he not want to say what he wants, or does he not know? 

There’s all kinds of goodness going on with Joel Fry’s nonverbal acting here! I love it soooooo much. If they actually go there, I’d be ecstatic, but as I said, I’m trying not to hope too hard. Either way, Fry is doing such a fantastic job with this character!

Other Doctor Lives: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – “We’re on Our Way Now” (2021)

Music video acting is interesting. It’s like, yeah, it’s acting, but it exists in this weird in-between space. The storytelling strokes in a music video can be overly broad, while at the same time, the identity-less characters that actors play can be drawn rather blankly. You’re not necessarily looking for who the character is, you’re looking for how the video makes you feel.

Like a number of music videos that tell stories, the tale in “We’re on Our Way Now” isn’t necessarily the same one told by the lyrics, although they both stir up a similar response. The song is a moody rock venture—when I realized that Noel Gallagher used to be in Oasis, I wasn’t surprised. It’s about a lost opportunity: seemingly a lost love, a lost chance that may have been snatched away by death. Right from the start, it’s wistful, entreating, “Remember what might have been.” The pre-chorus features the mournful lines, “Good luck in the afterlife. / I hear the morning sun doesn’t cast no shadow,” and the chorus, while melodically brighter, is still hung with glints of regret.

The video also asks us to consider what might have been, or perhaps what once was. We follow a man and a woman in two different scenarios—personally, I get the feeling that we’re looking at the past (the happier passages) and the present (the sadder ones,) but the former might also be a “road less traveled” kind of thing. In the happier passages, the two are clearly a couple, in love in easy, uncomplicated ways like walking through the park or driving through the city. In the sadder passages, we don’t know exactly what’s happened, but it seems they don’t have each other: the man is leading a lonely reckless life, while the woman stares into the camera with tears in her eyes.

Given that there are basically two “characters” in the video, it’s no surprise that Matt Smith plays the man. I’ll admit that his performance pulls me in more in the sadder passages. Whether he’s nervously looking out the window or lying listlessly on the bed of his small upstairs flat with a bag full of money (like I said, a lonely reckless life,) I feel like I’m being invited into his situation, whatever it might be. I want to know more, and I want to know what have happened between him and the woman (played by Gala Gordon.)

But while the happier passages are more boilerplate, they’re valuable for their contrast to the other scenes. These shots of a couple contentedly in love—are they the life the man used to have, and if so, what went wrong? Are they the life the man might’ve had if he’d not gone down a different path?

Accent Watch

Not applicable—he doesn’t speak onscreen.

Recommend?

In General – I think so. I wasn’t familiar with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, but I liked the song and the video is interesting.

Matt Smith – Why not? It’s not a super demanding role, but it’s four minutes out of your day, so if you like Smith, you’ll probably enjoy it.

Joel Fry-days: Alice and Steve: Season 1, Episode 3 (2026)

*Spoilers for episode 2*

This one is touch-and-go on the Joel Fry front for a bit, but I’m cautiously happy with where it goes and looking forward to seeing what happens next for Daniel. The rest of the episode is pretty enjoyable too—more focused on the relationships and less on public humiliation, which makes it less painful to watch.

After Alice had an epic flameout during her vindictive dinner party in episode 2, Daniel decided to chaperone a school orchestra trip he’d recently turned down, badly needing some space. So while he goes to Antwerp (alongside a colleague who’s most definitely attracted to him,) Alice is left at home as the main caregiver for their teenage son Dom. This doesn’t go great—she immediately cuts herself while attempting the cook, and who should arrive at the hospital to bring her home? Steve, obviously. And despite Alice’s efforts to give him the cold shoulder, circumstances conspire to remind her what Steve means to her.

Throughout their marriage, Daniel has basically always been there to do most of the caregiving/cooking/household tasks/etc., so Alice being on her own is a major adjustment, and she doesn’t handle it well. After she hurts herself “proving” she can cook, her hand is bandaged up to the point that she can’t do much without assistance, from buckling her seatbelt to turning the pages of a book. So, Dom’s the one who ends up doing the cooking. But even beyond her negligible household skills, Alice’s parenting is further hampered by her selfishness. The hospital told her that someone needs to be with her for the rest of the day, and when she finds out Dom is going to a party with his crush and Steve offers to stay, Alice tries to bribe Dom not to leave.

That said, this episode is actually Alice’s best showing to date, because when Dom has a crisis in the second half of the episode, she steps up. She offers Dom (and Rome, his crush) emotional support and reassurance during a tough time, and she gives some practical advice to the party full of high teenagers. Furthermore, the situation allows both her and Steve to get out of their own way, at least for a little while, and team up for the sake of someone else.

Our character of the week is Marni, who teaches music like Daniel. She’s the one who first invited him to come on the orchestra trip and is way into him. So between Daniel being angry with Alice and going off to Antwerp with Marni, I was definitely concerned about how this was gonna play out. I thought the actress playing Marni looked familiar, but until I checked IMDb, I never would’ve guessed this was Lydia Wilson, who played Matilda in Requiem! Her hair is completely different for the two characters, so I didn't recognize her. Another connection to a past Joel Fry project, which is neat.

It’s clear that Alice takes Daniel for granted and treats him badly, and she doesn’t exactly cover herself in glory when she drops him off at the school to go on the trip. When she asks, “Are you ever going to forgive me?”, he smoothly replies, “Are you ever going to apologize?” Still, that doesn’t mean I want to see a cheating storyline for him. Not to mention, I’m not convinced that Marni would be that much better than Alice. In episode 2, she emasculates him less than Alice, but she still emasculates him, and here, she leans in hard coming onto a colleague that she knows is married with kids.

Fortunately, though, this storyline takes an interesting turn, and I’m very curious to see where it goes next. I won’t spoil the details here, but I can see several possibilities moving forward. A couple of the options would be disappointing, another interesting, and another downright exciting! We’ll see which path the show takes—I know which one I’m crossing my fingers for.

Regardless of where we go from here, Joel Fry is fantastic in this episode. He’s so good at navigating Daniel’s reactions to what goes down. There are moments where he’s naively content, where he’s shocked, where he’s embarrassed, where he’s puzzled, and where he’s defensive. In particular, his final scene in the episode is really great. It’s the one that has me the most intrigued, and maybe even hopeful!

Another bit I love: when a server from the hotel bar tells them they’re closed for the night and Marni can’t convince him to make them one more drink, Daniel has the most ridiculously cute response. He gives a few quiet, tentative boos to the server, then waves to him and apologizes with a smile. A delightful moment, wonderfully played by Fry.