THE DRY, S3
Some hit TV shows know exactly when to leave.
Others overstay their welcome.
But could the third and final series of RTE and ITV's 'The Dry' be a case of a show wrapping up too soon?
For two seasons, Nancy Harris' eight part comedy drama about a dysfunctional Dublin family has really impressed.
Centred around Roisin Gallagher's alcoholic eldest daughter Shiv Sheridan, Harris and her director Paddy Breatnach have delighted in showing why she's became an addict and just how screwed up and cruel other members of her family reallyare.
Treated as the family screw up, Shiv might be a damaged soul but is she really any worse than her insensitive, hard drinking mother Pom Boyd's Bernie?
Her laid back dad, Ciaran Hinds' Tom haa an affair with Helene Patarot's Mina and is subsequently punished by Bernie who forces him to live in a hut in the back garden of the family home while she flaunts her new lover, Michael McElhatton's odious, arrogant, exploitative and extremely vindictive Finbar.
Shiv's control freak of a sister, Siobhan Cullen's Caroline is an intolerant doctor who treats all those close to her with contempt.
She cheats on her clean cut, nanny's boy boyfriend, Eoin Duffy's Rory with a senior colleague in the hospital where she works and becomes pregnant with another man's child.
Caroline and Shiv's younger brother, Adam John Richardson's Ant is a feckless, young gay man who smuggles lovers into the family home, smokes pot and rather unconvincingly holds down a job he loathes in an estate agents.
At the end of season two, Ant selfishly exploits the falling apart of his parents' marriage by convincing them to sell their south Dublin home, so he can hold onto a job he doesn't love.
Shiv has a narcissistic on-off boyfriend too, Moe Dunford's fellow artist Jack who cares little about her addiction, often encourages her to break her sobriety because he thinks she is more fun as an addict and who cheats on her, only to wallow in self-pity when that relationship goes off the rails.
Hanging over the Sheridans like Banquo's ghost is Carl, a much adored older brother who died tragically long before the events of the first series and whose passing, you suspect, served as a catalyst for all their dysfunction.
We never see Carl in 'The Dry' but we feel his influence and can see just how deep the sense of loss is in every member of the family.
There did appear to be some light at the end of the tunnel for Shiv in Season Two, when she had a romance with Sam Keeley's kind hearted barista Alex.
Oresented with the opportunity to go with him to Australia and take a break from the family, Shiv bottled it.
Season Three finds her leading the Alcoholics Anonymous group she attended and also living with her sponsor, Janet Moran's down to earth, Karen who still keeps an eye on her.
After selling the family home, Bernie and Tom are living in tiny terraced houses three doors apart in the same street.
A heavily pregnant Caroline has moved into Rory's family home and has to endure the regular put downs of his acid tongued mother which become even more jagged when the baby arrives.
Ant's workplace is shaken up by the arrival of Imogen Doel's twenty something, wannabe Karen Brady style executive Anna following a merger which sees his D4 rugger bugger boss, Bryan Quinn's Eddie increasingly ostracised.
Meanwhile Jack lands with a bang back in Shiv's life when her boss at the art college, Helen Norton's Dearbhla decides to hire him as a guest lecturer.
As smug and self obsessed as ever, Jack charms everyone around him, leaving Shiv puzzled as to why no-one can see how shallow he is.
The biggest upheaval in the Sheridans' life, though, is the arrival of Rick Donald's Australian Daryl who starts to attend Shiv's AA sessions, only to reveal he's not an addict but actually is Bernie's long lost son.
But is Daryl who he really claims to be?
As with Seasons One and Two, Harris delivers eight sharply written, wickedly funny episodes that revel in the shortcomings of its deeply flawed characters.
Easily outshining the similarly themed, recent BBC and RTE show 'The Walsh Sisters' and Sharon Horgan's mischievous Apple TV dysfunctional family comedy 'Bad Sisters' which spectacularly lost its way after one season, the writing is so strong you feel a half decent cast is bound to shine.
Fortunately, the cast are more than half decent.
Roisin Gallagher once again anchors the show with another brilliantly sympathetic turn as the hard done by Shiv, who yuu feel is constantly having to walk a tightrope between alcoholism and sobriety.
Cullen and Richardson continue to delight as Shiv's equally screwed up siblings - the former turning in her best work as Caroline struggles with the demands of being a young mum.
Hinds is as excellent as ever, as a genial mess of a dad.
Boyd glides through the show as the self-centred and often hard hearted Bernie, often delivering some of the show's most jaw dropping lines.
Dunford is terrific too as the insufferably smug and selfish Jack.
Duffy, Moran, Norton, Quinn and Patarot reprise their roles often to good comic effect, while Emmanuel Okoye makes an impact as Ant's ex boyfriend Max when he briefly re-enters his life.
New additions to the cast like Doel and Justine Mitchell as Aine Harrington, a maneating customer of Tom's coffee dock, amuse and there is a welcome return by Marion O'Dwyer and Charlotte Bradley as Bernie's condescending sisters.
Donald proves to be a superb addition to the cast, keeping the audience guessing throughout about whether Daryl really is who he says he is.
Intelligently directed by Breatnach, there are some really smart call backs to previous episodes in the concluding episode of the series.
And like all great TV shows, 'The Dry' reaches its climax leaving you wanting more.
Harris is smart enough to leave a few narrative threads hanging, should ITV and RTE choose to make another series or option a spin-off.
But there is no doubt the final season of 'The Dry' cements its place as one of the most satisfying television dramas ever to come out of Ireland.
Up there with 'Love/Hate' and 'KIN,' Harris' achievement is all the more remarkable because unlike those shows not a single bullet is fired and it has no underworld figures to fall back on.
It's just a deep, incisive and very amusing study of a dysfunctional family and the scars they inflict on each other through thoughtless actions and reckless words.
Authentically Dublin, 'The Dry' will be hugely missed.
Here's hoping Harris gets a chance to dazzle us again soon with a big or small screen creation that's just as funny and just as perceptive.
(Season Three of 'The Dry' was broadcast on RTE1 in Ireland between April 23-June 11 2026 and will appear on ITVx in the UK later this year)
FUNBOYS, S2
I've never written a four sentence review before but Series Two of the BBC3's sitcom 'Funboys' really deserves it.
The latest series of Rian Lennon and Ryan Dylan's Northern Irish culchie sitcom may have Steve Coogan guest starring in one episode but it's about as funny as bovine viral diarrhoea.
In fact, this crude, terribly acted and woefully directed sitcom is so poor, so puerile and so obsessed with making bum and sex jokes, they'd probably craft a whole episode around bovine viral diarrhoea.
A terrible waste of licence fee money, it somehow manages to make BBC Northern Ireland's toe curlingly awful 'Give My Head Peace' look like 'Fawlty Towers' and, believe me, that takes some doing.
(Series Two of 'Funboys' was made available on the BBC iPlayer on June 19, 2026)
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