There are cliffhangers, and then there’s whatever happened at the end of Colin from Accounts’ second season. We had, by that point, witnessed protagonists Ashley and Gordon’s unconventional love story evolve from bizarre meet-cute – key stages: boob-flashing, car accident, injured dog – to soulmate-level relationship. But what starts with an exposed nipple can abruptly go tits up. On a heaving dancefloor at Ash’s best friend’s wedding, Gordon – drunk and buoyed up by the DJ dropping Slice of Heaven by Dave Dobbyn (the Oceanian equivalent of Come on Eileen, judging by the euphoric reaction) – decides to ask his girlfriend to marry him. Ash, humiliated by the circumstances, doesn’t respond. Everyone else films it and laughs. Gordon insists the whole thing was a joke and awkwardly boogies on. Then the credits roll.
If you had somehow managed to wipe this eye-watering faux pas from your mind’s eye, fear not: the Aussie rom-sitcom returns for its third and final series by replaying the agonising proposal in full. It gets worse. We discover the pair split soon after and haven’t seen each other for three years. In fact, they’ve both since found other (extremely attractive) partners: the kind but dim David and the hyper-capable and efficient Chelsea. As Ash later observes, they’ve “upgraded” – but you know their respective hearts don’t really belong to their nice new beaux.
Colin from Accounts – which is also the name of the dog the pair maim then adopt at the start of the show – is the sort of sitcom that runs almost entirely on charm. After all, there is no other way to convince an audience to watch two people fall in love, split up, get back together, split up again, then (I assume – the final two episodes weren’t available for review) reunite once more aside from cultivating a deep and lasting affection for them. This, however, is a mysterious art. The fact the pair are played by real-life couple and show co-creators Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer provides a frisson of autobiographical intrigue and obviously helps with the chemistry, but it’s hard to pin down what exactly it is about these characters that is so appealing: they’re both annoying, immature and petty, and far from morally upstanding (once they bump into each other again, it’s not long before they’ve betrayed David and Chelsea). Still, we desperately want them to find love, ideally with each other.
Think of it like Friends if it had just been about Ross and Rachel, with the other characters consigned to supporting eccentrics. Among the roster of weirdos here is Ash’s stunningly awful mother Lynelle and her alarmingly creepy husband Lee, who are now deeply entrenched in the men’s rights movement. Then there’s Gordon’s thoroughly unreconstructed brother Heavy (catnip for Lynelle, then), plus his brewery colleagues – the furious yet resoundingly cool Chiara and hulking sweetheart Brett – alongside Ash’s bestie Megan and her wife Rumi. The fact that three of the last four turn out to be sex party people does later serve to make Ash and Gordon seem like relatable nerds in comparison.
You probably wouldn’t describe Colin from Accounts as a hard comedy: its primary objective is to make us invest in its central will-they-won’t-they, and therefore prioritises well-drawn friendships, realistic romantic messiness and amusingly sour banter over non-stop jokes. That said, it can be laugh-out-loud funny when it wants to be. This series seems to have saved all its best material for its third episode, which involves a particularly grim morning for Ashley, now a qualified GP, thanks to an old man who has brought in his stool diary and samples. Blessedly, she is forced to cut his appointment short when she discovers Lynelle has posted a video about her own murder on Facebook (“take your shit! Get up – go, mate!”). Later, when Ash and Gordon meet at a fancy restaurant to discuss their adulterous kiss at the latter’s birthday party, a smug waiter pours wine in excessively long, urine-like streams from a traditional Spanish pitcher in what feels like a reprise of classic 1990s sitcom silliness.
Ultimately, though, this is an immensely comforting show: very sweet, very gentle, yet prevented from tipping into saccharine territory by a bass note of blokey and invariably profane Australian humour. The insults are particularly impressive – it’s difficult to choose a favourite from this series but I think I’ll go with the simple but effective “fucking cockhead” (credit: Lynelle’s ex Bernie discussing her current husband Lee). Cringe comedy – and what feels like a slightly misjudged subplot about child abduction – aside, Colin from Accounts has been like a ray of sunshine in the schedules. It’s been a huge hit across the world, and many will mourn its ending. I hope it turns out to be a happy one at least.
