Footballer's Wives: Series Finale

Netflix is what opened my eyes to the wonder that is Footballers' Wives. I jumped on this bandwagon right before it became super popular here in the States, but not much before. I watched the first two seasons on DVD, and then the final three on BBC America. For me, FW was at its best during the third and fourth seasons. The third season introduced us to Conrad and Amber and created the ever changing love triangle between Conrad, Amber, and Tonya. The characters of Shannon, Harley, Lucy, and Bruno entered the fray. They may not have been there since the beginning but Shannon, Lucy, and Bruno are the characters the fans will remember. Not Donna, Ian, Sal, or Chardonnay. They were blips on the radar.

The fifth season was lacking something. Lucy and Bruno were now apart, but Bruno had lost his edge. They wanted him to become the male center of the show and that was never what his character was meant to be. Lucy and Bruno may have loved each other, but they were hardly a romantic couple. Amber's quest to prove that Bruno was the one who killed Conrad was classic Footballer's Wives. The fallout would have been enough if they had simply left it at Roger being blind and having Amber regain her sanity. Why cart Amber off right as Tanya is returning? That is the rivalry we want to see. Not Tanya vs Eva De Wolfe, played with much fanfare but little substance by Joan Collins. I hate to break it to the producers but it fell flat. It was an interesting story that didn't live up to its potential. What if instead Amber had been quick to recover and hook up with Paulo as Tanya is setting her sights on him. They didn't need the bizarre tale that they were telling with Paulo and Eva De Wolfe. It was shocking, but not necessary. The return of Tanya fell just as flat as the introduction of Eva De Wolfe.With both Conrad and Amber gone, the connection that Tanya had to the remaining characters was tenuous at best. Where was the Tanya of old who would have eaten Lucy and Shannon for breakfast? Now she was having drinks with them and acting as if they were old friends. Don't even get me started on the lovey-dovey relationship between Jackie and Tanya. These are two women who hated each other.


I had to get those complaints out before I get to the good stuff. The series finale was obviously meant to be more of a season finale. Nothing was wrapped up. If it had been renewed, however, the sixth season would have been fantastic. With Roger dead, Jackie decided to leave for Australia to live with Kyle but not before she and Tanya discover an audio recording of Garry Ryan murdering Roger and admitting to trying to rape Jackie. Tanya selflessly volunteers to confront Garry for Jackie, but really just sees this as her payday. With her dead husband's assets frozen, Tanya sold all of her stock in Earls Park to Garry Ryan, who gave her a bogus tip on some stocks after her rejection of his sexual advances. Tanya now had the ammunition to get what she wanted from him, but as the episode concludes we see Garry offering Tanya some cocaine as a sign of good will. Cocaine that he has poisoned. Does she take it? That we are never going to know.

Bruno continues to try to rebuild his relationship with Lucy for the sake of Angelica and their unborn child. What Bruno doesn't know is that he might not be the father of the unborn baby. Who is the other maybe daddy to be? Tremaine. What? Lucy asks her doctor if there is anyway he can find out if the baby will be black or white. Of course not. Is she an idiot? When did Lucy and Tremaine sleep together? There was once a glance exchanged between the two of them after Trey learned that Liberty was having an affair with her female personal assistant and Bruno was trying to force his way back into Lucy's life. That is it and it isn't enough. Why was there no indication of an affair? Or a one night stand? The sad truth is that we will never know what happened between Tremaine and Lucy nor will we know who the father of the baby.

Liberty goes off to Japan to film a new campaign only to discover that she is portraying a cannibal who eats white people. She goes ahead with it(could she be any stupider?) anyway and comes back to England to widespread backlash. She couldn't see that one coming? Tremiane is naturally livid because racism is exactly what he is fighting against. He leaves her to clean up the mess, but the damage has been done. At Callum's birthday party she is attacked in the bathroom with a broken beer bottle by an enraged fan. Her face is cut up. How will Liberty react to living her life with a scarred face? We'll never know. Sensing a theme here?

Callum continues to punish Shannon for her role in outing his mom for her fake bout with cancer. Shannon is doing everything she can to work on the relationship, but the boy is becoming downright abusive. Instead of standing up for herself she throws him a lavish birthday party at which he sleeps with another girl. Liberty finds a devastated Shannon in the bathroom(this is pre-beer bottle attack), and basically shoves cocaine up Shannon's nose. A reluctant Shannon is reluctant hesitant never having done it before, but being the old pro that she is, Liberty manages to convince her that it will take the edge off. I smell an addiction storyline in the works. Shannon heads out to the dance floor high as a kite and starts dancing with another guy to get a reaction out of Callum. He tries to punch the guy but winds up punching Shannon instead. If this character was going to stick around had there been a series six, I would have liked to have seen him and Shannon develop an even more dysfunctional relationship as she fell further into drug addiction

How do you end a show like this? Series Five took a while to take off, and its a shame that it hit its high notes at the end with no hope for renewal.