Joel Fry-days: Alice and Steve: Season 1, Episode 6 (2026)

*Spoilers from episode 5*

Hoo boy. Okay, we’re at the season finale. Big, big developments going on here, maybe too much to wrap up all at once. While Joel Fry’s performance is as wonderful as always, I do think Daniel’s story gets shortchanged amid everything else going on.

So, spoilers from the last episode. At Izzy’s ultrasound, she and Steve found out she was further along than she thought. This means her ex-boyfriend Janis, not Steve, is the father of her baby. Steve is still determined to be there for her and the baby, though, and he proposes. Oh my god…

A coach bus has brought the wedding party and guests out to a fancy old manor house in the country. (Izzy isn’t really showing yet, so this is all very quick.)  Steve and Izzy both have their own separate freakouts, and Alice is on the verge of spontaneous combustion.

I won’t get into too many details to avoid spoiling things, so I’ll keep my thoughts a little more general here. Not surprisingly, Alice is handling none of this well, and she’s not shy about showing it. The rehearsal dinner is a disaster, though only partially because of her. For part of the episode, Steve is convinced that she’s trying to murder him, with Alice not doing much to assuage his concerns on that front. 

Everything gets very twisty-turny, and while there are some hints toward where a resolution might be heading, we don’t actually arrive there. That’s because of a big third-act crisis that throws everything else into stark relief. Rather than seeing how things turn out, we end on an all-but-literal cliffhanger. I’m still deciding how I feel about the ending, which isn’t fully satisfying where the narrative is concerned but might still be cathartic in its own way. I haven’t wrapped my mind all the way around it yet.

Our last character of the week is Eilidh Fisher as Rome, the person Dom has been dating. They’re a gentle nerd, and the two characters are cute together. Here, Rome offers comfort to Dom as the pre-wedding festivities highlight the train wreck that his family has rapidly become.

When episode 5 ended with the proposal, I suspected that the finale likely wouldn’t have enough time to devote much to Daniel, and I was right. Given that it’s his daughter’s wedding, he’s around for plenty of it, and there are some good moments for his character, but his story isn’t really dealt with. None of the stuff from episodes 3 and 4 about his sexual needs are mentioned at all, and while there’s a hint toward what his resolution may be with Alice, it feels too simplistic for everything that’s gone down between them during the series.

But even if he doesn’t get much in the way of his ongoing story, there are still some strong scenes for Daniel in this episode, and as Joel Fry has done time and again in so many supporting roles, he doesn’t waste a single opportunity.

Daniel has brought Marni as a guest to the wedding, which obviously turns heads. When she’s apprehensive about being there, Daniel firmly tells her, “Seriously, [Alice] took her best friend to every single event for our entire marriage. It's my daughter's wedding, and I can invite my best friend if I want to.” So sweet! I also enjoy a soft moment the two of them share on the grounds of the manor house, and when the crisis hits, Daniel proves both brave and proactive. My favorite part, though, comes during the rehearsal dinner. As things start spiralling out of control, Alice is predictably focused on herself while Daniel’s primary concern is Izzy. There’s a fantastic bit when he steps in to give Izzy some breathing room at a point where she’s clearly distressed and Steve is just making things worse. Throughout the series, it’s been really lovely to see how Daniel looks out for her amid all the chaos and drama that’s erupted.

So that’s Alice and Steve! Is it the end? I’m guessing so—renewal doesn’t seem all that likely to me, but who knows? Personally, I'm so curious for more of Daniel's story! But for now, I’ll sign off with my final thoughts on the show.

Accent Watch

Southern British English.

Recommend?

In General – Ultimately, I think I would, providing you can handle the troubling subject matter and the strong secondhand-discomfort factor at times. It’s certainly not the most enjoyable show, considering how vicious some of the characters can be, but it’s a compelling one.

Joel Fry – 100%, yes! I’m finding that, if the role gives him basically anything to work with, Fry always gives you a performance worth watching, and he turns in fantastic work on this show.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements (including a troubling age-gap relationship setup,) sexual content, language, drinking/smoking/drug use, a bloody injury, and the general ick of messy people being their worst selves.

Joel Fry-days: Alice and Steve: Season 1, Episode 5 (2026)

*Spoilers for episode 4*

Oh man, here we are at the penultimate episode! I had definite misgivings about this show early on, but it’s really come around for me. It features continually excellent performances from Joel Fry, so that obviously helps, but beyond that, I’m liking the show itself too. Let’s get into it!

First, the main spoilers from episode 4. Alice had been staying with her mom while Daniel needed space, and at her mom’s urging, she shows up at the house to win him back. It’s while Marni’s there, which of course doesn’t help. It all ends in a pretty devastating argument between them. Meanwhile, Izzy gets some concerning medical news and calls Steve to go with her to the doctor, despite their breakup at the start of the episode. It turns out her tests came back normal, with one notable exception: she’s pregnant.

Izzy and Steve invite Alice and Daniel to a fancy restaurant, where they drop the baby bombshell. After an initial outburst, Alice fights a losing battle to hold back her emotional reaction and act happy for Izzy.

Our character of the week is Dom, played by Tyrese Eaton-Dyce. While Alice had already had Izzy when she and Daniel met, Dom is the child that they had together. He gets less focus than Alice, Izzy, and Daniel. In this episode, he struggles to let himself enjoy spending time with his crush Rome when he’s stressed over everything that’s going on with his family.

For a while, I thought this was going to be a bottle episode, set entirely in the restaurant. But this only makes up the first half of the episode, with the second half devoted to various character combinations—largely Alice/Daniel and Izzy/Steve, though there’s also a bit of Dom/Rome, with the mother-daughter relationship between Alice and Izzy looming large even when they’re not sharing the screen together.

In some episodes, it’s felt like Alice’s anger/desire to punish Steve has outweighed her love/concern for Izzy, but here, her relationship with Izzy comes to the forefront. It feels like this is the first time in the series that we’ve seen Alice make a genuine effort to put someone else’s feelings first, even if that’s incredibly hard for her and she’s only semi-successful. She stands up in the middle of the restaurant and shouts for someone to take their drink order, she goes to the bathroom when her “happy” tears are getting out of control, and she reminisces about vaginal tearing. But despite all that, she actually is trying, and there are some good moments between her and Izzy here.

Daniel doesn’t like this turn of events any better than Alice does, but no surprise, he does a much better job of putting a good face on it. He asks after Izzy’s health and assures her it’ll “be lovely to have another little one running around the house.” As for his own reservations, he waits and voices them to Steve when Alice and Izzy are both away from the table. Shoutout to Daniel as the dad who stepped up! Joel Fry plays all of this wonderfully, navigating Daniel’s tension/apprehension but playing nice for Izzy’s sake.

To make matters even more difficult, this whole conversation is happening against the backdrop of the existing friction in Alice and Daniel’s marriage. They’re the first two to arrive at the restaurant, both under the impression that they’re just meeting Izzy, and Alice asks, “Is she parent trapping us?” At first, Daniel smiles along with her joking, but then she starts making light of their fight, which he doesn’t appreciate. So even before Steve and Izzy arrive, things are tense between the two of them, and yet they do still care about each other. There’s a good moment where Daniel sees Alice struggling to cope with the baby news and isn’t sure if he ought to reach out with a comforting gesture.

In the interactions that are just between Alice and Daniel here, there’s a bit of a theme of them starting to reconnect and then getting derailed. Daniel feels Alice doesn’t prioritize their relationship, and she’s not doing a stellar job of convincing him otherwise. Although it’s clear that Alice does want to resolve matters with Daniel, she keeps getting them off track, whether it’s by joking about something he takes seriously or coming in with some brutal honesty that just makes him feel worse. By the end, he’s retreated into his own worst habits—avoidance and a tendency to get a little petty/passive-aggressive.

One more episode to go! Will any of these messy, damaged folks work it out? At this point, I’m not quite sure what “working it out” would look like for them. Guess we’ll see!

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!