My Review of Tip Toe: "Episode 3"

 

Written by Russell T. Davies

Directed by Peter Hoar 

Clive (to police officers): "This isn't a murder, it's an execution."

Opening with a line as chilling as that certainly put Clive under a more intense spotlight. Leo died and Clive surrendered himself to the police while showing no remorse for his neighbour's death. This episode really was David Morrissey's from start to finish.

I went through various emotions watching Clive in this one. There was a flashback to his teenage years in a garage band showing that Clive had creative aspirations at one point in his life. Then the episode moved back into recent events.

It turned out that Clive bullied a former co-worker and made himself unemployable on a site. Clive's way of dealing with that was needlessly vindictive. That was one of a few things that made me dislike him throughout the episode.

Back in the first episode, we learned that Clive cheated on Marie with a woman named Patricia. This episode revealed that he never did when he almost cheated on Marie with a woman named Diane (Denise Welch). Diane seemed to share similar world views to Clive but ultimately she has the sense not to go there with him.

Clive and Marie's miserable state of limbo led to some great scenes in the episode but once things circled back to Clive and Leo catching George in Leo's house, we saw a rather ugly side to Marie. The way she spoke about Leo was genuinely sickening, even when George clarified that Leo did nothing to him. Marie was just as bad as Clive, maybe a tiny bit worse.

Things came to a head in the worst possible way. If ever there was a good case to delete your group chats, this episode demonstrated it. Not only did Clive find the texts between Leo and George (along with that voice note) but snooping on the Spit & Polish group chat, he's also aware of Saul's OnlyFans activities. That last scene between Leo and Clive left me with a sense of dread.

- I thought Stephanie might have been dead with Leo but Zee was comforting her at the start of the episode.

- I did find it daft that everyone assumed Leo called them "perverts" when he was right there. It took them a bit to realise the obvious.

- Mikey is cute but it was really stupid of him to post Saul's video to the group chat. Saul did have sex with a woman in one of his videos.

- Stephanie made some sensible points during her scenes with Leo, Malba, Zee, Mikey and Hanna. 

- Standout music: Buzzcocks Ever Fallen In Love.

- Chronology: 43 years in Clive's past and then picking up from the previous episode cliffhanger.

The third episode was certainly tense as fuck during those final ten minutes. I could feel the dread throughout with the more time Clive spent in Leo's house. This was definitely David Morrissey's episode and I had so many conflicting feelings for Clive.

Rating: 8 out of 10