The Inbetweeners series 3 episode 5 review: Will Is Home Alone

3.5 Will Is Home Alone

Having once been a teenage boy myself, I’m all too aware of how mates can be freeloaders at times. If sparing your time to sit with them on park benches and look intimidating to the middle classes isn’t enough to keep them loyal, then the promise of free food will have them positively swarming around your house. A piece of toast made from bread originating from your kitchen is far more attractive to the average youth than happy slapping a pensioner and providing the Daily Mail with something to cry about.

So, spare a thought for Will, the hapless muggle cousin of Harry Potter, who is distraught to find out his fit mum is off for the weekend with a potential new suitor. It’s bad enough that she’s become technically aware enough to log on to Facebook, but now she’s got the audacity to devote some of her attention away from Will. The horror!

On hearing this, Jay is particularly excited as it means he won’t be living under the slightly creepy watchful eye of his dog Benjy, so will be able to ‘relax’ in the total privacy of his mate’s place. That is, perhaps, not as worrying as Neil telling Will what he got up to with his mum’s Facebook pics. Adding to the creep factor is the news reaching Mr Gilbert, who also shows an interest in Will’s mum’s social networking and single status, compounding Will’s problems even more.

With an house empty of all parental authority, Will spends his time cleaning up crumbs left by Neil’s toast habit and Jay invites himself round.

Simon, meanwhile, is spending time prepping for a father and son golf tournament, which is probably just another reason to have Joe Thomas in a comical outfit. Still, it makes a change from seeing him in his birthday suit.

The real skill of The Inbetweeners is making the more unlikeable sides of the boys somehow likeable. Kicking some flowers, eating toast as if it were made of heroin and ordering beer on someone else’s credit card would usually be grounds for a well deserved kicking. But here, it’s almost charming as Neil and Jay indulge themselves like two spoiled private schoolchildren.

Animal lovers be warned, though. The end of the first half will have you raging, though there may well be a few guilty chuckles after. And Jay’s remorse at the end also treads that fine line between being heartbreaking and hilarious at the same time.

This episode may be one of the most predictable, but there’s still plenty of great moments here.

Read our review of the episode 4, The Trip To Warwick, here.