Episode #1.4

My overall rating of "Derry girls"'s Season 1: 6/10.

This episode certainly has its share of great moments, but most of them are these that don't deal with the main plotline. It feels like the writers expended basically no effort in trying to get the Soviet kids right, and all the jokes to do with them lack in imagination to boot. Maybe it feels especially bad due to it hitting a bit closer to home, and frankly I'm under no delusion that if some Ukrainian or Russian series had Irish kids appear in an episode, they would've been gotten right, what's with the complexities of Catholic vs Protestant conflict etc, but even on its own merits it's just weak humour-wise. And it keeps being surprising to me that apparently casting somebody capable of giving a sentence in plausible Russian in a role of a Soviet citizen is apparently so difficult in the British Isles' productions - you'd think there are enough kids of post-Soviet oligarchs hanging about... but I digress.

While there were some choice moments, the whole plot with the wild Ukranian girl were a little too much. The girls use her as a plaything and she is anything but. She is a vamp. She is just like anyone from anywhere, an individual. The Chernobyl thing only makes the Derry girls feel they have done something special by allowing her to be with them. Anyway, it's a bit of a ride when Grandpa Joe (the world's biggest jerk) begins to see a woman. His daughter can't accept it. His wife has only been dead for ten years. Right? It ends with this big party where there are many rooms and lots of action, and where nothing much happens.

Probably the weakest storyline so far, though some funny moments, it didnt flow very well.

The episode isn't supposed to be about her or her experience, it's about how the girls in a "war torn" country embraced and understood someone from a very different culture.

The highlight of the show is the hypocrisy of "Western" ideas and thoughts of those who come from a "less fortunate" area without ever speaking to or experiencing life in that area themselves.

And, my favorite part is the "B story" of Joe and what his girls believe is an indiscretion. This is one episode that is definitely geared more toward the faithful and those who have experiences within the traditional family framework.