As Season One nears the finish line, Belle/Hannah (Billie Piper) takes a big step with Ben (Iddo Goldberg) – or perhaps it’s the other way around. In any case, their relationship isn’t going to be the same after this week. It begins quickly and with almost no setup. The two friends walk down the street with Ben begging to join Belle in a foursome. She of course says no. Her clients are a married couple and she’s short one man. Ben insists he’s the man for the job, but Hannah just doesn’t see it. She claims he doesn’t know how to have sex “professionally.” After she scours various websites and is unable to come up with a suitable partner, she decides to give Ben a chance – despite the fact he’s getting married soon. After all, he claims he’s “always been good at separating emotion from sex.”
After Belle gives Ben a few pointers – as well as a little blue pill – the couple arrive. Kate (Heather Bleasdale) and Liam (Jonathan Phillips) have been married for fifteen years and they’ve been together twenty. The plan is for a straight swap…and maybe a little lesbian action as well. (Forgive the urban slang…at least I didn’t say lesbo or lezzie.) Good, clean fun to spice up their sex life and celebrate their union. But almost as soon as the foursome climb into bed, the couple is only interested in each other, much to Ben’s disappointment and our amazement; the shot of Liam casually pushing Belle aside to go jump on his wife is a great one, because Piper has never looked hotter in the series than she does in this scene. There’s a great montage sequence of the couple going at it while Hannah/Belle and Ben stare in amazement. The couple looks over and asks if their hosts are having fun. Sure! This leads to some minor kissing between our leads, and then Ben looks deeply into Hannah/Belle. In the ultimate scene showing the duality of her character, he calls her Hannah, and she tersely corrects him. “It’s Belle.” She becomes uncomfortable and pulls away, but it’s unclear why. There could be half a dozen reasons at this point.
The episode ends almost as casually as it began, with Hannah and Ben bidding adieu to the couple and then to each other. After everyone leaves, Hannah admits to the camera, “For me the hardest numbers have always been one plus one. I can never seem to make them add up.” It almost seems as if nothing has changed between the two, but the beauty of this episode was the mixture of the said and unsaid. As the final shot fades, you can clearly see that Hannah’s in deep thought, and that her friendship with Ben has changed, and hopefully for the better. For the first time in the series, Ben is not relegated to a couple brief scenes – he’s in every scene, save for the few brief shots of Belle trying to find a “fourth” at the beginning. Piper has been great since the word go, but due to his limited screentime, it’s been tough to get a grasp on Iddo Goldberg’s talents in this series. This material showed exactly why he was cast in this pivotal role, and he and Piper have amazing chemistry. The bulk of the story is interplay between the two. Some is fun, and some serious – but all of it’s great. It makes me really want to see a Season Two that delves much deeper into their complex relationship, instead of it just being the sordid-yet-palatable adventures of Belle. Far and away, this is the best episode of the season and it’s material that takes the show into a whole different arena. Next week, however, is the season finale. Can it possibly top this?
