TV Show of the Year: Love/Hate

Somewhere right now, in Netflix HQ, some unfortunate translator is trying to find the French for ‘gee-bag’. His German counterpart is vainly trying to put ‘doortboord’ auf Deutsch, and slowly beginning to realise that ‘coola-boola’ doesn’t really have an equivalent.
Of course, Love/Hate had sealed its place at the centre of Irish popular culture long before this year; upwards of a million people tuned in to watch the finale of Series Four in 2013. This time around, it was less about establishing itself as the greatest drama ever produced in this country, and more consolidating its reputation as the most gripping, enthralling, zeitgeisty programming Ireland has seen.
Did it work? Well, unless you were living under a rock for the six-week run this year, you’ll know that yes, it did. In fact, had JFK had been shot, on the moon, at halftime during the Superbowl, it would scarcely have been a bigger TV event than the latest installment of the epic series.
Stuart Carolan has never been afraid of surprising his viewers, but this year pushed the envelope further than anyone could have imagined. Nidge slain in his own back yard? The protracted pursuit by the Gardaí falling to pieces? Patrick’s torturous murder of the hapless hitman Packy? Fran the Man at the centre of a scene that will go into Irish television history? It seems like the latest run had just about everything.
“It was better than it has ever been,” says Aoibhinn McGinnity, who stars in the show as Nidge’s long-suffering wife, Trish. “It’s really powerful, and probably that bit darker and edgier.”
Now, the world gets to discover what we knew all along; Love/Hate is the real deal. The newly-inked Netflix partnership will see the show distributed across Europe, and with everywhere from South Korea to Brazil buying into the show, what started as a low-budget RTÉ gamble is about to go global.
“It’s brilliant to see the success here,” Aoibhinn enthuses. “But to see it travel is something else. My brother is in Australia, and they’re all gathered around watching it on a Monday; I know this because I’ll get all the feedback through Snapchat. I was in New York recently, and they knew it there. That’s amazing to me.”
You’d be forgiven for thinking that a bit of recognition would hardly be too surprising for Aoibhinn. After all, when there’s more than a million people sitting at home watching the show, you’d expect at least a few of those would recognise the Monaghan-born actress out and about. Not so, she says.
“I certainly don’t get recognised all the time. When I do, it’s often the littlest thing; if I wear my hair a little more like Trish would, for instance. Some days, I think, ‘Gosh, something’s happened today and I look more like her,’ because wherever I am people are coming up to me!”
Of course, sometimes the line between fact and fiction gets a little blurred; earlier this year, Lawrence Kinlan who plays Elmo told Hot Press that people on the street approach him to attest to their own criminal prowess.
“God, that sounds awful!” she laughs. “I know it happens, though. Caoilfhionn Dunne – who played Lizzie – used to get awful abuse for killing Darren; genuinely, she had a terrible time of it. I mostly get people worrying about my marriage, because there’s some very concerned people out there. Of course you get the confusion; a couple of girls on O’Connell Street last week thought I was married to Tom Vaughan-Lawlor in real life, or when Trish was pregnant assumed that I was pregnant. Generally, though, it’s just people telling me about Nidge’s affairs or something. Everyone seems very invested.”
It probably makes sense that viewers would have a soft spot for Trish. In amongst the murderous psychopaths, pipe-bomb makers and general ne’er-do-wells of the show, there’s something a little more approachable about the character. She’s… well, ‘normal’.
“Well, they’re sort of all normal people, in a way.” Aoibhinn reflects. “They’ve grown along with the story. Of course they change over time, and shed their skin to an extent. The glimpses of madness that you saw in Fran, for instance, are fully out now. There’s not much charm covering it up anymore. But it’s all done completely organically, as part of the characters’ growth. Stuart has done it so incredibly well. We’re kind of in awe of him, to be honest.”
The bould Mr. Carolan, the creator and writer of the series, has of course been lauded from on high as a bona-fide genius, and with good reason; the past five years have seen him weave the strands of the Dublin underworld into a tale tighter than a duck’s posterior. It seems like nothing is beyond his reach – it was recently revealed that a sixth series of the show will appear on screens, but not in 2015. It will also, one suspects, feature something of a shift in focus, given that the conclusion of the run left off with Nidgey looking as full of life as the garden gnomes he was using to smuggle dope.
You’d be tempted to see if there’s a bit of insider information that could be gleaned, but Aoibhinn meets such inquiries with a heard-it-all-before smile.
“Everything’s been kept under wraps for five years. By now, most people couldn’t even be bothered asking. I get bored of my own voice, telling people nothing. I suppose I could start making things up, but I’d only seem like a smart-arse.”
It’ll be a lonely twelve months without the show on our screens, but at least there’s the prospect of more to come a little further down the line. Until then, it’s box-sets and memories.
Unless you fancy watching it all again in French.