Motherland

The mighty Motherland continued; it's still gloriously funny, but now, also, irksome. In a good way. Because, just as we're now trying to include harried mums in all the causes screaming for our empathies, our antihero Julia suddenly behaves like the self-centred, entitled sod we all half-suspected, ramping up her "victimhood" to take huge advantage, again and again, of a kindly soul in a cafe (and never mind the poor owner, always down at least half a day's heating in exchange for one all-day latte).

Irksome in a good way because it denotes the supreme confidence of the script to dare to show Julia as several-dimensioned, and one of those dimensions (it turns out) is sweet-smiley manipulative bitch. It's probably no coincidence that there are no fewer than four writers involved, of presumably strong self-opinion and character themselves (one's Sharon Horgan); mimsier hands would have shied away from addling viewers' simple brains with such complexity. Is this, finally, Britain catching on to the US trick, employed in hit after hit, of dedicated writing teams?