“Last Tango in Halifax” Season Five Has a Lot to Love (if You Can Forgive it for Season Three)

I was genuinely surprised when I saw that Last Tango in Halifax was returning for a fifth season. Partly because its existence had blurred a bit in my brain after a three-year hiatus, with happy associations severely frayed by the bizarre and unnecessary death of Kate, one of British TVs few lesbian or queer women of colour. Mostly because I thought showrunner Sally Wainwright was so utterly consumed with the production of Gentleman Jack that she couldn’t possibly have time for anything else. On the back of her meticulous dedication to bringing the story of Anne Lister to glorious life (and her eventual realisation that she messed up big-time with Kate’s lesbicide) it only seemed fair to let Wainwright off the hook and give her cozily madcap family drama another go.

Series Five picks up with all the cast settled into the lives we left them with. Retired lovebirds Alan and Celia finally have their own place looking out over the beautiful Yorkshire countryside but, seven years into their unlikely marriage, cracks may be starting to show. Caroline is juggling life as a single mum with turning round a troubled school while Gillian’s expanded her farm and has a house full of grandkids. Both step-sisters agree that despite being single and run off their feet, they might be the happiest they have ever been. Obviously, declaring this in episode one is a cast-iron guarantee that more than a few obstacles will be thrown in their way.

As always, Caroline’s relationships are given equal weight with everyone else’s, and her cagey responses to questions about her love life show she’s got her eye on someone. That someone is Ruth, the head of English at her school, played by out bisexual actress Lu Corfield (who you may recognise as the bonkers one in the abortion clinic in Sex Education or, if you are unfortunate enough to have seen it, last year’s dire British prison drama, Clink ). If at first it looks like a retread of the perilous path we went down with Kate, prepare to be thrown a few through curve balls as Caroline navigates her feelings for Ruth as well as fielding several declarations of love from some expected and rather less expected sources!

If you were a fan of the early seasons and can find it in your heart to forgive its transgressions, you will find the same joys as before. The things that this does well, it does very well: dialogue and delivery so real you kind of want to punch the screen to make people get to the end a sentence. Any scenes between Gillian and Caroline remain the highlight for me, and this season shows how they’ve really become rocks for each other. As grand (and rare) a sight it is to see a 50-something lesbian rocking our TV screens, seeing two fully-realised middle-aged female characters being there for each other feels equally special. When Caroline shows unprecedented vulnerability and uncertainty over Ruth, Gillian’s there providing encouragement; when both characters realise that despite their best efforts, all it takes is one thing to knock their confidence, it’s each other they turn to. Most importantly, Gillian tries every episode to persuade Caroline to go to Hebden Women’s Disco (modelled after the real life Todmorden Women’s Disco, near to legendary lesbian hot spot Hebden Bridge) and undoubtedly the most compelling reason to get to the end of this short, four-part season is to see if this happens.

This is a show that always interweaves outlandish storylines with the mundane details of everyday life. The more far fetched parts rarely succeed for me and this season is no exception. Trifling and overblown plots include Alan’s brother Ted returning from New Zealand under a cloud of mystery, and a young rapscallion Alan meets that looks like he got lost on the way to an audition for Oliver Twist . Conversely, the more realistic aspects are so realistic it hurts: blissfully, there are no homophobic comments from Celia, but only because she’s too busy being a selfish hag about her new kitchen and Alan’s job, while Alan flounders in response and they bicker over every triviality. I should also warn that perhaps in an effort to show how Caroline has softened in recent years, her wardrobe has switched from her sharp headmistress outfits of yore to an array of shapeless, pastel coloured ponchos and blouses that she could have stolen from Tina off The L Word , a vision you may find traumatic.

Sally Wainwright hasn’t ruled out the possibility of future episodes, even though the packed schedules of herself and the cast make it unlikely it will happen any time soon. I would not be averse to the idea based on this run: the characters remain compelling and the quality is there, even if it doesn’t quite have the sparkle of early seasons.

As a side-note, the Banksy-style giraffe that appears on Gillian’s barn in episode two was painted by queer artist Anna Jaxe, after Sally Wainwright saw a mural Jaxe had painted of Anne Lister on a building in Shoreditch. So keep up your Anne Lister fan art everyone – who knows where it will take you.

Season Five of Last Tango in Halifax is available now in the UK on BBC iPlayer, and forthcoming in the US.

Last Tango in Halifax: Get On This Show and its Late-in-Life Gay Lady Character

One great thing about having Netflix in the British Isles is that you find out there’s a lot more to BBC programming than Doctor What and Benadryl Cucumber. If you don’t have regular access to British television and you like television shows that feature lesbians who are not teenagers or Los Angeles residents, then you’re missing out. Let me introduce you to the fantastic show you’re sleeping on: Last Tango in Halifax.

Adorable darling imperfect perfect human beings, all of you.

Last Tango in Halifax is about a lot of different kinds of relationships — parents and children, lovers and ex-lovers, even brothers and sisters. All of the relationships are explored and fleshed out in really lovely and realistic ways, whether through dramatic turns or everyday human interactions. One of the best things about Last Tango is that the relationships themselves are some of the most compelling I’ve seen on television, and they’re also some of the most underrepresented. Ageism? Not on this show. An elderly couple as the central romance (and one of the most adorable and endearing on television today)? Absofruitly. A middle-aged lesbian couple that includes a woman of color? And how!

I could go on and on about all the little gems that make up this show, but I don’t want to give too much away. Instead, let me gush about how fantastic Caroline is, because Caroline is fantastic. It’s no secret that I have an extremely huge soft spot for high-powered lesbians in positions of authority who shut down dumb guys and know how to take charge. The more I think about it, the more I genuinely believe that the best thing we have in the queer community is a surplus of women who fit the HBIC category, and Caroline is a fantastic example of exactly that kind of lady. Oxford-educated smartypants, respected headmistress, and occasional hot mess of a person, Caroline is in her mid-forties and is the divorced mother of two boys. Her husband is cheating, but she’s also been having an affair with a female colleague. Her mother Celia, one half of the show’s main couple, has recently reunited with her childhood sweetheart, and this unconventional heartwarmer of a romance is a catalyst for Caroline to finally come out to her family and be open about her relationship. Celia doesn’t take it well, nor does Caroline’s ex-husband, and Caroline maintaining her Type A take-charge lifestyle while navigating the fragility of being in love and being a parent and being a daughter and being a human being is one of the best portrayed narratives on the show. Plus her relationship with Kate is genuine and sweet and complicated and hard, all of which is to say that it makes you want to tear your hair out in sympathy sometimes, which I think every decent show should inspire in its audience.

STARTED FROM THE BRITAIN NOW WE’RE QUEER

This show is important. How often do we get to see a late in life coming out story? It’s just plain necessary that narratives like these, especially ones that deal with motherhood and divorce and what it means to leave the closet after more than twenty years of knowingly inhabiting it, get told, and it’s even more important that they’re told well. Last Tango shows us so many things we rarely get the pleasure of seeing in our LGBTQ media, and it shows us in a way that’s compelling, brave, and endearing. I would dump all kinds of tea in my harbor to make sure all the queerios can have access to this little treasure.