Francesca Scoraggi
Special to the Chronicle
I clicked on “Scrotal Recall” in Netflix because of the terrible name. I have questions about that: was the production team hoping morbid curiosity would make people click? Surely they didn’t think that was a good name. Regardless, the show is not unpleasant; it is even rather funny at times, but altogether unremarkable in a general sense.
“Scrotal Recall” is a British show from Channel Four and Netflix is showing it as an original. It follows three friends, Dylan (Johnny Flynn), Evie (Antonia Thomas) and Luke (Daniel Ings) who live in Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland.
The first episode features Dylan finding out he has chlamydia, “The missionary position of sexual diseases,” according to Luke, and decides to notify all his previous sexual partners in person rather than via cheery, informative postcards offered by the doctor’s office. He makes a lot of drunken phone calls, reliving his failed relationships and connections, which all lead him to realize his “one true love” was with him the whole time. The plot is pretty boring and overdone.
The main character set stars Dylan, who is a generally kind-hearted, clueless serial monogamist played by a lanky dude with slightly too long blonde hair. Evie is his adorable female best friend, a photographer, whom Dylan almost consistently lets down. Evie gets too little screen time as the center of the story for proper characterization, which caused me to become very frustrated.
Luke is the best character in the show, if one can forgive him for the overuse of skinny ties. With the face of an angel – God Bless Daniel Ings’s soulful eyes and Byronic curls – he delivers most of the humor. He’s self-aware and open about what he wants from his friends (wingmen and chauffer services), whereas Dylan hides the keys of a woman he desperately wants to stay for dinner, even after the power goes out. Luke is irreverent but he does have firm lines, as demonstrated in the finale of the season. His commitment to the happiness of his friends is admirable. At least one member of this friend group can see beyond his own nose.
I love the jumbled structure of the show, the back and forth time jumps. Every reveal puts an earlier event into better context, producing a charming “a-ha!” sensation. The highlight of this short, short season is the third episode, “Cressida,” with the plot focusing on Luke’s quest to finally have sex with Ilona McLeod from his high school.
The episode includes a breathtaking summary of “Point Break” – “Because if Patrick Swayze tells you to back off, you do it.” And a jar of figs – “I didn’t eat them, I just put them on a shelf. It never seemed like the right time. And then when I heard from you, I realized, that was why. They belong to you Ilona. They… they always did.”
The show has one season with six episodes out, each just over 20 minutes. If you want to laugh for a bit during finals week, without any intensive commitment, two and a half hours to plow through a show isn’t so bad, is all I’m saying.