Colin From Accounts season 3 review – TV’s most charming romcom comes to a funny, emotional end
This season’s timeline jumps ahead three years, taking the audience back to the eternal question of ‘will they or won’t they?’
Colin From Accounts is one of those shows that sounds totally unremarkable on paper: a romantic comedy featuring two characters who connect via a meet-cute involving a cute dog (and a car, and a nipple). This triggers the old “will they or won’t they?”, to which the answer too often is: well, who cares? As it turns out, quite a few of us did care once we started spending time with medical student Ashley (Harriet Dyer), brewery owner Gordon (Patrick Brammall) and, of course, their delightfully taciturn border terrier, Colin, whose full name is indeed “Colin from Accounts”.
Dare I say it: the pooch is in no way essential to, well, anything; that’s kind of the joke. Given Dyer and Brammall are a real-life couple, it perhaps stands to reason that they’d share such effortless on-screen chemistry – but then again Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were married while making Gigli and generated about as much electricity as a couple of filing cabinets.
It also helps that Dyer and Brammall are the show’s writers and co-creators, allowing them to play to their strengths, tailoring each exchange to their dramatic and comic instincts. They bring to the dialogue an easy flow and a surprising ability to pogo between comedy and drama: the show can be laugh-out-loud funny one moment, sad and dramatic the next.
The third and final season begins by recapping the scene that concluded the second series, which was awkward – veryawkward – with Gordon on one knee, in front of a soiree full of people, asking Ashley to marry him. She responds, “We can talk about this later”, which of course means “no”.
The timeline jumps ahead three years, the pair unexpectedly meeting again when Gordon goes to get a medical, Ashley now a practising doctor. We learn they haven’t seen each other over those years and Gordon, who sold his brewery, has made some poor investment choices. “Turns out axe throwing and drinking don’t mix,” he says – one of many examples of a funny line delivered in a scene that lands emotionally. You feel the tension between them; the distance between them; the stiff, stilted cadence of two people who once knew each other intimately.
From a narrative perspective, this reset takes us back to the beginning, to that classic foundational question: “Will they or won’t they?” And because we’re emotionally invested, viewers will barely notice how formulaic the underlying structure of this show is: meet-cute → courtship → separation → reconciliation.
Both Gordon and Ashley have new partners, though in a romantic comedy that’s barely an inconvenience; other lovers are merely placeholders, keeping the proverbial seat warm. In a sense, Dyer and Brammall take the easy way out, presenting Ashley and Gordon’s partners as largely unlikeable personalities. Ashley’s new beau, David (Thomas Cocquerel), is – gasp!– allergic to dogs, which alone pretty much consigns him to the dustbin, and Gordon’s girlfriend, Chelsea (Nikki Shiels), is rather … full on, though she rejects this particular terminology “You haven’t even seen full on, Gordon,” Chelsea scowls in episode three. “I have done a lot of therapy to stop you seeing full on.”
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But again, these Johnny-and-Jane-come-latelys are just cannon fodder, and we don’t care if we never see them again. We care more about the established supporting characters, including Gordon’s friends and colleagues at the brewery, Chiara (Genevieve Hegney) and Brett (Michael Logo), who have been working with him for so long they’re like family. Ashley’s actualfamily, much to her chagrin, includes her mother, Lynelle (Helen Thomson), and her husband, Lee (Darren Gilshenan), who are still both swept up in the men’s rights movement, leading the group Women Against Women Against Men (WAWAM for short).
This season’s co-directors, Trent O’Donnell and Madeleine Dyer, continue the show’s seemingly effortless rhythms, buoyed by Dyer and Brammall’s writing, which maintains the high standard set by the previous twoseasons. Only the first four episodes of eight were made available to the press, so I can only hope that the team sticks the landing. There’s no reason to think they won’t: Colin From Accounts continues to be one of the most charming romcoms currently on television.
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The first two episodes of Colin From Accounts season 3 will air in Australia on Foxtel at 8.30pm on 27 July and immediately available to stream on Binge, with new episodes streaming weekly. UK and US airdates are yet to be announced.
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