Summary
Ian’s true nature comes to the fore in Bad Sisters Season 2, Episode 7, setting up a potentially dangerous finale.
We’ve spent the entirety of Bad Sisters Season 2 wondering what Ian was really up to, and Episode 7, “How to Pick a Prick”, gives us all the juicy details. It’s very much an Ian-centric penultimate installment, despite the fact he’s barely in it, which is fine since he’s the primary point of mystery, and the antagonism he now presents gives all of the remaining Garvey sisters someone to fight against.
You can argue it isn’t the most interesting revelation, and I’d agree with you, but it probably fits the setting better that he isn’t some kind of criminal mastermind or international assassin or anything too sexy. Instead, he’s just a corrupt degenerate. And you can never have enough of those.
Ian’s Betrayal
I appreciate that this episode doesn’t waste any time in revealing that Ian’s up to no good. It opens with him cleaning out Blanaid’s bank account and disappearing, but not before sending Houlihan the CCTV footage of the area he copied from that old lady’s house. He clearly reckons it’s a smoking gun to land all of the Garvey sisters in prison and cover his tracks, but he’s a little overconfident.
It helps that Angelica turns up alive. Without a murder victim, Houlihan can’t hold any murder suspects, so Fergal, who like me has become increasingly fed up with her, orders the Garveys to be released. Not that Angelica is feeling particularly talkative, but she also doesn’t discriminate. She won’t talk to Ursula when she visits to try and apologize, but she doesn’t say much to the police, either.
After learning what Ian has done, the sisters theorize that it was Ian who Grace withdrew the money for. He was a conman all along, which means Angelica has been innocent the entire time. It shuffles her to the side so that we can focus on Ian as the proper bad guy now, but I personally think she’ll have a not-insignificant part to play in the finale.
The Sisters Fight Back
Eva is devastated about his turn of events because she was evidently one of Ian’s patsies. She succumbed to his charms, made him a trustee of Blanaid’s bank account, and basically let him get away with all this under her nose. So, she turns to the bottle (Becka’s horrified “It’s not even chilled” when she cracks open the white wine is superbly delivered.) But the sisters also get to work.
Through Joe — more on him below — they learn that Ian’s a gambler, so they enlist Roger to help them investigate the racetrack, where they learn that Ian’s real name is Cormac. He has a thing for the horses and his lucky number is 5. But that’s not exactly actionable information. It takes Eva breaking into the burner phone they found to figure out a rough location, but against the advice of her sisters, she heads there to find him alone.
When Eva goes knocking and asking around, we the audience learn that Ian — Cormac from now on — is married with children, and his wife seems to be complicit in his activities. Now she thinks that what he’s been up to is going to bring trouble to their doorstep, she’s adamant that he fixes it, which is how he ends up waiting for Eva at the end of Bad Sisters Season 2, Episode 7.
Owen McDonnell in Bad Sisters | Image via Apple TV+
Houlihan Might Have Some Use After All
“How to Pick a Prick” is something of a redemption tour for Houlihan, a character I haven’t been able to stand throughout most of the season. But she’s able to retain some respect by not ratting out Fergal for taking the money from Grace’s car and ruining his retirement, and then discovering some more background about Cormac.
It’s touch-and-go with Fergal. She clearly takes the stage at his retirement party with the intention of revealing his secret to everyone present, but when she sees him with his daughter, who is imminently leaving for Australia, she clearly understands why he made the decision he did. This is the first flicker of humanity we’ve seen from her, and although it was a long time coming, I’m glad that we got here eventually.
It also positions Houlihan as a potential hero in the finale. Despite her professional obsession with pinning something on the Garveys, her conversation with Angelica causes her to focus more on Ian. When she looks into the name through some contacts, she finds it attached to a dead homeless man. The investigating officer on the case was — you guessed it — Cormac Sweeney. Cormac was a cop with several accusations on his file, including domestic violence and corruption, but all charges were dropped. This is clearly someone prone to violence and intimidation. And now he has Eva right where he wants her.
Becka and Joe Reconcile
Becka’s once again one of the standouts of this episode. She has a few really funny line readings, but it’s her interactions with Joe and Matt where she really stands out. She has to pump Joe for information about Ian, which amounts to a hilarious argument in the pub (Joe’s lingering hatred of Matt remains very funny), and in the process, she has an epiphany.
This means seeing Matt, which is just as well since he has arrived at the same conclusion she has. He firmly believes she’s going to be a brilliant mother, but she’s going to raise her child with Joe, not him. He doesn’t want to break up a family, and she knows she’ll never quite get over him if she keeps holding on. Joe came through when it counted. And he’s funnier if you ask me.
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