Gavin and Stacey: The finale

[IHopeYouStepOnALegPiece]

A final final episode!

Fingers crossed they can go out with a bang but not sure!

Nessa is not meant to be any younger. She’s always been older than Smithie.

they’re meant to be the same age on the show.

Smithy and Nessa were never meant to be the same age! 😂

There are countless significant pointers to Nessa being considerably older than the other three. Not least the photo of her with Stacey when Stacey was a teenager - Nessa looks at it and recalls she herself must have been in her thirties then. And then there’s her incredibly varied personal history - which incontrovertibly speaks of a fairly long life.

At least - that’s how I’ve read it over the past 17 years …

Nessa's age has always been part of the show. Endless gags about her being considerably older than the others

Nessa is 29 and has worked at the slots for 45 years. 🤣

caught a bit of East in East and she was in there, totally recognisable

I was expecting a secret to come out about why she was desperate to marry Smithy

I'm finding myself slightly irritated by all the hype (on here and in the wider media) about finding out what happened on the fishing trip. Of COURSE they weren't ever going to tell. That would have ruined the original humour of it.

Can't believe smithy has spent 5 years with that insufferable woman.
I enjoyed it apart from did their have to be another wedding/alter drama? And then the crazy dash in the bus across the field?
Loved Gwen and Dave
Apparently the Sonia actress didn't even tell her family she was in it which is amazing as it was a big part and she did it well. Hated her!!!
Might watch again later

It's always delivered as though it's a joke or double entendre, but is completely meaningless. Part of the joke is people trying to read something into it that just isn't there.

I’ve come back to say that I actually have to wonder how on earth anyone has watched this series and come away with the idea that Nessa and Smithy are the same age. You’d have missed half Nessa’s lines.

For those who haven’t seen Stella, it’s a lovely series - I think it’s on Now TV/Sky Go.

Yes, Smithy complains about how old she is in the first episode.

Oh and this! The actual joke is that we will never ever know. It’s a comedy trope. I really don’t understand why people don’t get this.

Lasting five years as a couple was hard to believe, but when Nessa tells Stacey about proposing to Smithy, she specifically mentions that it was pre-pandemic.

So Sonia’s plans for The Most Important Day Of Her Life would have been put on hold until she could be certain of it getting the day she wanted.

Also Smithy was always a bit of a car crash with relationships and was feeling left behind by all his friends being coupled up.

But fundamentally, to make the story work, Smithy had to be in a visibly awful relationship to prevent Nessa from being able to make her peace with it and move on.

The poor actress though! - having to stay in a different hotel from the rest of the cast so as to keep the secret.

I always assumed that Nessa was at least a decade (and more) older than Gav, Stacey and Smithy.

I took it to be that in this Christmas Special Smithy was late 30’s - early 40’s and Ness was about early-mid 50’s 🤷‍♀️

In the 2019 special it’s made clear - there’s a photo of Stacey and Nessa together and Stacey says ‘I was 17’ and Nessa adds ‘which would make me 35’.

In the original series Stacey and Gavin are both around 26/27. Stacey is going to start cutting down on the fags when she hits 28.

I thought it was fab, had binged the previous series in preparation which helped as my memory is shit!

The Smithy/Sonia thing is less odd when compared to his previous relationship with Lucy the sixth former who did gymkhana and whatnot. We never met Lucy but I imagine she grew into a Sonia.

Well remembered!

So that would put Nessa at about 45 when she meets Smithy and gets pregnant.

And 57 or 58 for this year’s episode.

I thought the running joke was that Nessa lied about everything and no one questioned it. Whether that was jobs she had, people she had met or even her age

So I don’t think you really know what age she is, regardless what she said

Yes, this is the joke! That to do all she said she has at the times she said, she would have to be in her 70s or something

But you think she’s lying then something proves she was telling the truth - like John Prescott turning up at her wedding or the boat skipper welcoming her back last night.

I don’t think any of it is meant to be a lie? It’s all true. And ridiculous. That’s the joke - that her life has been utterly mad. We’ve seen Noel from Hearsay and John Prescott to prove it. Stacey was part of some of it. She has the skills to show for it.

The stuff about her random past is all true which is why it’s so funny because she just casually mentions it or eg Noel from a Hearsay pops up as a cameo. Like her being fluent in Italian in the restaurant.

One truly piercing moment was seeing Nessa effortfully cycling the elderly couple along the beach front. She looked so exhausted and I really felt for her.

Obviously we don’t know how much of what she says about her past life is true - but we’ve only ever seen her undertaking shit jobs for minimum wage. Some of them low status, low effort, like nursing the slot machines, others backbreaking, all weather, open to ridicule and abuse gigs like the human statue. And she was just about to go off for months on a cargo ship …

No reason to think she wouldn’t be perfectly fit and well (diet notwithstanding) but most people approaching or around 60 start musing on the possibilities for an easier life. Gavin & Stacey is hardly a Mills & Boon romance, but it comes down to the same thing in the end - a safe haven for a woman in a patriarchal society.

Oh I think it is meant to all be true, that's the funny part. But her age doesn't make sense in any way, that's the running joke part.