With Joel Fry’s TV work, I try to refrain from searching for posts on my socials while I’m in the middle of watching a particular project—don’t want to accidentally run into spoilers. But as I was starting series 2 of White Van Man, a Darren gifset popped up from somebody I follow on Tumblr, and one of the tags was, “If you watch anything from this show, let it be s2e5.” And the further I got into series 2, I couldn’t help but think, How can episode 5 be even better than episode 2 3 4??? Well, having now seen it for myself, I maintain that basically all of series 2 is top-tier for Joel Fry/Darren and I don’t know how I could possibly pick favorites, but I definitely see why this episode would be somebody’s favorite!
On his 32nd birthday, Ollie is ousted from his football team and replaced with a “new, faster, sexy version.” On Emma’s advice, he sets out to join another team ahead of a big tournament, proving he’s still got it. The only team that will have him is a ramshackle one, with none other than Darren as their goalkeeper. Still, Ollie’s determined to whip them into shape and trounce his former team at the tournament.
Ollie’s reactions here are turbo-charged because he’s sensitive about his birthday and being thought of as old/past his prime—this plays out at work as well, with him determined to fix a broken doorbell instead of replacing it because he’s projecting way too hard. But really, this is well within Ollie’s wheelhouse. Since he took over the business, he’s always had his eye on expanding and optimizing, something he and Emma have in common. Whether it’s getting flyers or a website for advertising or dreaming about getting a second van, he’s always wanted bigger and better for himself. So it makes sense that he’d go all in on designing a training regimen for his lackluster new team, and it’s only natural that he’d want to wipe the floor with his old teammates.
Lots of fun little bits here. I love that Ollie wears a pin that says “32” during his birthday party at the pub, which is adorable, and I like Emma brainstorming how to show her support for Ollie when she’s busy the day of the tournament (naturally, Liz’s advice is less than helpful.) When Ollie earnestly tells his new team, “We could be heroes, just for one day,” that leaves another of his new teammates to spend the rest of the episode always trying to guess what song lyrics he’s referencing, even when he’s just talking normally. And Tony has a fantastic bit of physical comedy trying to hop over the railing around the pitch!
I’m less interested in a subplot about Liz dating Danny, the younger player Ollie’s old team replaces him with. The main gag is that, while Liz is younger than Ollie, Danny is even younger than her and she drastically overcompensates to seem hip. The jokes here just feel a little more obvious and easy, although I do like Danny saying, “Sorry, do you prefer ‘cougar?’” when Liz balks at him calling her an “older woman.”
It’s another fantastic episode for Joel Fry. While Darren has a little less screentime than he’s had on some of the other episodes this season, he delivers absolute gold whenever he’s onscreen. For great moments of physicality, we have Darren dancing his way onto the pitch for training, leading the team in a haka, and trying to chuck a dropcloth into the open door of the van—because of physics, this obviously doesn’t work in the slightest (he doesn’t care.)
As I said, it’s totally in character for Ollie to want to turn his ragtag new team into champions, and those are the exact same reasons why Darren is dismayed and pissed off when he realizes Ollie is joining them. “H-how…? Shut up!” he sputters before stalking off to the goal. It’s understandable why nobody would be thrilled to learn that their boss is joining the team for their recreational hobby, but for Darren it goes a lot deeper than that.
“Before, the team was fun!” Darren tells Ollie. “We didn’t care. But the second I saw you, I knew it! I knew it. I thought, ‘That’s ruined it.’” This is also very in character, both that Darren would rather play for fun than train hard to win, and that he’d be upset at the thought of Ollie coming in and turning it into work. This leads to a clash, not just between Ollie and Darren, but between Darren and the rest of the team.
It all culminates in the most counterintuitively rousing halftime speech around. Fry plays the hell out of this whole scene—he might as well be channeling Aragorn leading troops into battle, but the way he does it is just pure Darren. I love it so much!
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