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Saturday 12 April 2014

Sugar Rush: Season Two, Episode 1

"I don't want therapy. I want sex!"

Quite sensibly, given what happened at the end of last season, we fast forward eighteen months. Kim is back with Stella and Nathan, who are back together and embarrassing as always. Matt, sensible chap, is a Goth. It's all back to normal for Kim but Sugar, who is not so middle class, is consequentially still in prison. Kim hadn't seen anyone since and is desperate to go on the pull.

While the first series is based on the Julie Burchill novel, this season is entirely original. It feels much the same, certainly, but a certain amount of exposition is required to untangle the mess that was the end of the last series.

Stella and Nathan are currently celibate, and are receiving sex therapy in scenes which delightfully skewer the whole self help industry. Kim fancies Saint, the purveyor of "Munch Box", a new lesbian sex shop in town (it's definitely Brighton!), but chickens out of asking her out. Saint, and her shop, symbolise the deeper waters of sexuality where Kim is not yet a confident swimmer.

Kim, naively, meets Anna in a gay club and has an amazing time with her, culminating in a bit if schoolgirl roleplay, during which her parents walk in ("That, Nathan... that is sex.") I'm the episode's funniest moment. That's the thing about Sugar Rush; much of it is really just old-fashioned farce, but it feels much witter and meta and modern.

Sugar, during one of Kim's prison visits, clocks immediately that Anna is just using her (is she jealous?!) and, yep, she is ("You were sweet. I had a nice time"). Sugar is afraid of her imminent release from prison; beyond the visits from Kim she has nothing, no life. Never has the class gulf between the two of them seemed so stark. 

Things are looking up, though: Kim ends the episode with Saint's number...!

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