So having binged my way through Peep Show (and loving it), it really stood out to me just how dark the comedy really is, in a way that perhaps you don't notice if you only watch an episode every week or two. Cripplingly, oppressively dark, in fact.
On the surface, most of the humour comes from how Mark and Jeremy can't seem to do anything without the other messing up their plans spectacularly. Usually this results in a cringey denouement in which one or both is publically humiliated due to a contrived and ridiculously unworkable plan of their own making. Super Hans' wacky antics usually lend an oddball levity to this otherwise rather bleak circus of failure.
Occasionally we have a moment of success. Mark getting on well with Johnson (initially, before Johnson betrays him). Mark and Jeremy occasionally sticking up for each other out of true friendship (Mark trouncing the Book Club dickhead, and Jeremy offering to dance with Mark when he's painfully alone at a party).
These moments of success usually come from Mark and Jez using their different personalities together in an additive, positive way.
But over time, a certain repetition creeps in. Slowly, you begin to realise that literally none of the significant events in their lives works out for Mark or Jez. Ever. Everything they do to improve their lives is doomed to awful failure, almost always due to their own inescapable character flaws.
But the ending of Season 9, supposedly the final season of the show, we see Mark and Jeremy back in familiar territory: Mark trying to win over the woman of his dreams and failing pathetically, and Jez suffering an identity crisis...the same kind he's been having and failing to do anything about for years.
The difference now is that in the last episode Jez is now a 40 year old slacker rather than a 20-something. He still doesn't have a career, a stable relationship, a stable friendship with Mark (or anyone else!) or even a sense of his true identity. He doesn't even know if he's gay, bi or what!
His "liberal slacker" lifestyle which is supposedly full of choice actually seems more like a depressing cover for the fact that he has zero choice, direction or confidence in his life and in reality he is just as lonely and isolated as Mark. His extroverted nature means he can cover that up superficially in social situations with more success, but in reality he lacks true friends and partners and his life is just as much of a social void.
Mark's attempt to get with April in the last series is uniquely depressing because, ironically, she may actually finally be "The One" for him. He's been calling girls "The One" since the first season, but for once this assessment actually rings true. April truly is intelligent, kind, funny and similar to him.
And yet (with Jeremy's help) Mark again f***s it up. And April leaves, presumably to never return.
The series concludes with Super Hans breaking up with his GF and planning to leave the country and Jeremy and Mark once again sat alone in their flat on their sofa. After 9 seasons, they are exactly where they started...but older and worse off.
In that last scene, Jeremy's mindless request to Mark to "pull him off" (which Mark immediately scoffs at and refuses) at first seems like a silly throwaway comment. But then Jeremy says he doesn't really know why he even said that. It's a grim shout out to Jeremy's nature: he's still a thoughtless hedonist who makes dumb decisions and doesn't consider or even know what he wants or why he does what he does. He's learned nothing.
Mark replies by asking if Jeremy would like him to read a book about Napoleon to entertain them both. Cue Jez scoffing. Again, this comment comes across not as a cutesy reference to Mark's character, but a reminder of his social ineptitude and obsessive nerdiness...it's an acknowledgement that he too is still the same...and has learned nothing over the years either.
In a way, the two men share an odd duality. Their traits may be polar opposites to the naked eye, but close observations show that their character differences actually make very little difference to how their lives turn out. To illustrate this point: Jeremy's problems are often caused by his stupidity: he comes up with moronic plans that have no chance of working.
By contrast, Mark's misfortunes are caused by his own intelligence: he compulsively overthinks everything, ironically leading to moronic plans that have no chance of working. The two are one and the same.
The last PoV shot is actually from the perspective of the wolves on TV. They howl and stare out at the lonely Mark and Jez, as if a reminder that they're slowly crawling fruitlessly towards their inevitable doom.
If Peep Show has a message, it seems to be this: People are shallow, self-obsessed neurotic creatures and the majority of us cruise through life as "worker drones", as Johnson would say. Life is often bitter and unhappy, and even your close friends are unreliable and vain.
It really is a rather bleak and morbid underbelly to a hilarious show, and I do hope that if the writers do bring back the El Dude Brothers for one final series they get a little bit of self-awareness, love and happiness in their lives, if even for a moment.
As terrible as Mark and Jez often are as human beings, I think they deserve it.
