Ennui and Malaise Episodes 5-8

The second series of the programme famously attacked by mainstream media as 'a toxic mix of drugs, drones, deviant sex, anti-social behaviour, pointless hedonism, hopeless 'lefty' politics, leaden symbolism and teenage decadance'.

Continental philosopher, guest star and fan Slavoj Zizek wrote about the series extensively in a monograph called 'Black Milk: Television and Toxicity' published by a small Belgian press.

'Whatever one might like to say about this series- that it is indulgent, that it is pretentious, that nobody does anything but take drugs and have sex and so on, should reconsider their interpretation. The series does not say 'This is the Real', it is against the Real. Everything that happens in Ennui and Malaise is a projection of fantasy so that the person denying these images is immediately disavowing their own fantasies which involve exactly the same exhaustive explorations of sexuality, destructive devotion to libido and stuff like that.'

Episode 5: The famous New Year episode. Alex and Sophie endure the first hour of the New Year at their friend's massive townhouse in Wimbledon. Sophie sits watching hip hop videos with a pair of oversize pigeon wings tied to her back, icicled cocaine and snot hanging from her pretty nose. A gang of underfed art-school girls who talk like they're performing Einstein on the Beach make intimations of boredom throughout. Meanwhile Alex lies in a bath wearing a plastic crown, fucked out of his face on 2-CI and repeatedly touching his hands and the pale surface of the bath while someone with a megaphone recites the lyrics to Respect by Biggie Smalls. Fox, that triumphant homosexual, returns, makes a joke about getting his own spin-off on the annexed tennis courts, does a bit of coke and then gets his 'Alf' sucked by a ataraxic blonde girl who bobs her head to the rhythm of Ivor Cutler's mournful harmonium. Soundtrack: 'Heartbreaker' Maria Carey and Jay Z, 'Heartbroken' by T-2, 'Well Tuned Piano' by La Monte Young and Gruts by Ivor Cutler. Subtitles.

Episode 6: While playing The Game of Death one Saturday afternoon Alex and Sophie decide that they wish to be Situationists. They record an episode of Ren and Stimpy which they then talk over, transforming Stimpy's destruction of the lummox's hang nail into a scene where the sleeping pig of bourgeois territorialism is being slaughtered for his sins. Frequent shots of the skinny couple bathed in cold, ghosty TV light. Soundtrack: 'Broken English' by Marianne Faithfull.

Episode 7: Sophie's sister, Alice, returns from Iceland. The girls flick through magazines, smoke weed, meet Fox at a Kingston underpass where he is snogging a soldier, walk near the sea, go charity shopping, get fuzzy on the kerbs, score some drone shortly before it is illegalised and then try and sleep in the cinema. Fox gets arrested for holding a policeman's cock during an interview while Sophie and Alice climb out a bathroom window, squelch across the winter earth, finish a joint that crackles like glass, steal bikes and sleep in Hyde Park. Alex is in Bristol, shooting heroin, convinced he is dead. Soundtrack: 'Ari's Song' by Nico, 'Too Many Creeps', The Bush Tetras, 'Beat Bop', Rammellzee and K Rob, 'Christmas Time Is Here' by Vince Guraldi. Subtitles.

Episode 8: Reading their dialogue off cue cards held by a skinhead, Alex and Sophie have an argument which often falters or fails entirely. During these frequent silent passages Alex re-enacts Tilda Swinton's breakdown at the end of The Last of England, each time more and more distressed. They conclude the argument eventually, undress, bite, spit, suck and spank each other. Sophie feeds Alex honey until he throws up. She tongues him desperately straightaway afterwards. Soundtrack: Ravi Shankar's work on 'Alice in Wonderland'. Subtitles.

Images: Chloe Sevigny photographed by Terry Richardson and Franny and Zooey poster by Will Holden.