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Soooo, fellow fans of the original "Queer As Folk" - I have prezzies for you!!! :) :) :)
I know a number of us have speculated, written stories and wondered for years over the possibilities of just what happened after QAF2 - "All the stories are true," right? Welllll, I have the goods on what the "official" line would have been if the series "The Misfits" would have been produced. The show was meant to be an off-shoot of QAF, focusing on Hazel and Alexander - with cameos by folks from QAF, such as Vince.
Vince? Oh yes, Vince... Why's that important? Because we would have gotten to find out things about his character that we never would have guessed at while watching QAF. And we would have seen how his adventures with Stuart after QAF shaped him into a rather complex character. A dangerous mystery. Sound intriguing?
Want to know more about what happened to Stuart and Vince? What cities they traveled to? Want to know how Vince earned money after QAF - a LOT of it apparently? These and other tidbits are now gifted to us in the book "T Is For Television: The Small Screen Adventures of Russell T Davies". (The authors of the book used the Misfit scripts as sources for the information given, btw.)
If you are a QAF fan - have a look-see:
Excerpt from “T Is For Television: The Small Screen Adventures Of Russell T Davies”
by Mark Aldridge & Andy Murray
Re: The Misfits – Pages 122 to 125
Most of the drama comes courtesy of the return of Vince and the introduction of Des’ son Mickey. (Des is the policeman that Hazel punched in QAF2 – and then later marries.) The Vince of Misfits is a very different person from the one who left with Stuart at the end of Queer As Folk. When Hazel tells a neighbor that he is staying for just a week (‘all he could spare us’), the script describes her as ‘smiling, but TOO bright, clipped, a lot going unsaid.’ Evidently a lot has gone unsaid between Hazel and her son, with Vince finding himself lightly questioned by Des about the frequency of his communication with his mother. ‘Come on though, couple of e-mails a month, is that enough? Every morning she checks the inbox,’ he tells Vince. Vince insists that he and Stuart just don’t stop long enough in one place to make communication that easy. ‘I’ve got my laptop, I make a bit of money designing websites. You can do it on the move,’ he points out.
But there’s clearly more to his new life than he is letting on. Vince has a lot of money and is coy about exactly how a job designing websites would provide for him so well. In a bar later that evening the changes in Vince are made more explicit. Alexander gets sworn at by a man who barges past, which he takes in his stride, but Vince has a rather different perspective. There is ‘a glint in Vince’s eyes, a coldness. Danger notching up with every line.’ A brief argument ensues between Vince and the man, who claims that Alexander acts too much like a ‘fucking poof’. ‘So my friend’s the wrong sort of gay, is that it?’ says Vince, only for the man to call Alexander a ‘freak’. The script specifies: ‘Trigger word. For all the danger, it’s a complete surprise as Vince swings a sudden expert punch, hits the bloke right in the face.’ This is a new Vince; something has clearly changed, with this obviously not being a one-off occurrence for him. ‘Vince just stands his ground, utterly unscared,’ the script continues. Hazel is scared, ‘like she doesn’t know him at all.’
The burning question, of course, is what happened between Vince and Stuart after the events of QAF2. Their relationship status is even unclear to Hazel but, true to form, Alexander has no qualms about being direct in his questioning. ‘Look, I’m the only one who’s gonna ask,’ he says. ‘What’s going on with you and Stuart Jones?’ Vince is evasive, so Alexander clarifies: ‘Are you shagging?’ Vince simply replies that “We’re together’, saying that ‘You’ve just got to be there.’ Hazel, having had a drink, manages to be more direct than she has been earlier. ‘’Cept we’re not, are we? So we’re never going to know. End of story.’ She is described as being ‘like a time bomb’, and explodes shortly after. ‘You fuck off, you up sticks and fuck off and I don’t know a thing, it’s all gone and you don’t give a toss,’ Hazel shouts at Vince.
Unlike the Vince of old, who grumpily received insults from all and sundry, he retaliates when she complains that he hadn’t just left for London, as was Stuart’s initial plan, but left her outright. ‘I’d get people laughing at me, d’you know that?’ he says. ‘Cos every night I’d go out and there was my mother, I’d get shags laughing in my face, you’re the bloke with the mother, how embarrassing was that - ?’ There is no apology, but they make up with each other later.
No further clarification of his relationship with Stuart or his changed character is forthcoming, which is perhaps fortunate for those who enjoyed pondering on the nature of the love between Vince and Stuart as finally manifested at the end of QAF2. At one point Vince reads through the emails he has sent his mother; ‘From: Stuart&Vince, the two names in a column, repeated over and over. One every subject line, a different city: Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, etc. [Close up on] Vince. Haunted by his other life.’ Precisely what he was being haunted by is unclear, and the two finished scripts are tantalizing in this regard. But even had a full series been completed it seems likely that there would have been no further clarification. Whether it was a sexual love, or a more complex form of deep friendship, is still open to debate. Indeed, the question is complicated even more by the appearance of new character Mickey.
Mickey Stroud is a 23-year-old junior doctor, ‘full of energy, sexy in an untidy sort of way.’ When we first meet him he s his treating an eight-year-old girl, but he is more interested in her father, a ‘sexy fucker’. He insists on checking out the father’s groin strain, although not out of any concern for his well-being. Afterwards he says to the nurse, ‘Just you wait, he’ll go home, think about me, have a wank, then punch the wife. Guaranteed!’ Highly sexed, Mickey lives with his boyfriend Steve, ’20, tall, smart. Very handsome, but that’s all.’ But their relationship is an open one, on Mickey’s side at least. When he meets Vince there is an attraction. Shortly after they are properly introduced, they go out onto Canal Street away from the others. ‘Then with absolute confidence – the opposite of his old self – Vince reaches out, takes hold of Mickey’s arm, pulls him in. Kisses him. Deep, strong, snog. Not just grappling for sex, a powerful connection.’
The two have sex, but it’s always clear that there is no particular emotional attachment on either side. There is an implication that Hazel has manipulated the pairing in the hope that it will keep Vince in Manchester. But the man that Vince is now does not have any interest in standing still or settling down. Of course, the ease with which Vince sleeps with another man adds yet another complication to the question of exactly what the relationship between him and Stuart is. Vince finds the idea that there is a future between him and Mickey preposterous. ‘Sod Stuart Jones, not him. I’m in love with Mickey Stroud. Thought you all knew that,’ he jokes. ‘You can forget America, I’m gonna stay and move in with him and live happily ever after. We could live down the road, pop in every day.’ Then he makes his point more bluntly. ‘I mean. He’s a kid, he’s nice enough but he’s a kid. I’ve shagged him a few times, can I stop now?’
It’s impossible to second-guess the likely reaction to Misfits had it been made, but certainly Davies’ scripts are strong. Although very firmly placed within the QAF universe, there is enough of a shift of emphasis to make it out as a separate entity to its forebear. Much of its black humour remains intact. (When Des speaks of his late wife, he tells the story of her death, when an elephant attacked her minibus during a visit to Kenya. ‘Stamped on,’ he tells Hazel’s household. ‘That’s awful, that’s completely awful,’ Vince empathizes. A beat, then he asks, ‘What happened to the elephant?’) Its ability to mix bold and outrageous stories with potent character moments also seems to be in place, with Mickey being at least as sexually confrontational as Stuart. Despite this, it is also worth considering whether the shift of emphasis away from an almost exclusively gay cast of characters to more general ‘misfits’ would have allowed to series to cross over the mainstream.
But perhaps the most problematic element of the programme would have been the initial emphasis on Vince. After such a deliberately enigmatic finale to QAF2, it is difficult to accept the ‘official’ line on what sort of person Vince became. Although it is deliberately left vague, and there is no indication that there will be further clarification in later episodes, Vince is the character it was easiest to form an emotional attachment to. By developing the character, and stripping away so much of what made him ‘Vince’ in the first place, there is a chance that sections of the audience would have been disappointed.
Sooo, what do you think? New questions arising? Muses inspired? Let's hope so...
Hugs
xof
I know a number of us have speculated, written stories and wondered for years over the possibilities of just what happened after QAF2 - "All the stories are true," right? Welllll, I have the goods on what the "official" line would have been if the series "The Misfits" would have been produced. The show was meant to be an off-shoot of QAF, focusing on Hazel and Alexander - with cameos by folks from QAF, such as Vince.
Vince? Oh yes, Vince... Why's that important? Because we would have gotten to find out things about his character that we never would have guessed at while watching QAF. And we would have seen how his adventures with Stuart after QAF shaped him into a rather complex character. A dangerous mystery. Sound intriguing?
Want to know more about what happened to Stuart and Vince? What cities they traveled to? Want to know how Vince earned money after QAF - a LOT of it apparently? These and other tidbits are now gifted to us in the book "T Is For Television: The Small Screen Adventures of Russell T Davies". (The authors of the book used the Misfit scripts as sources for the information given, btw.)
If you are a QAF fan - have a look-see:
Excerpt from “T Is For Television: The Small Screen Adventures Of Russell T Davies”
by Mark Aldridge & Andy Murray
Re: The Misfits – Pages 122 to 125
Most of the drama comes courtesy of the return of Vince and the introduction of Des’ son Mickey. (Des is the policeman that Hazel punched in QAF2 – and then later marries.) The Vince of Misfits is a very different person from the one who left with Stuart at the end of Queer As Folk. When Hazel tells a neighbor that he is staying for just a week (‘all he could spare us’), the script describes her as ‘smiling, but TOO bright, clipped, a lot going unsaid.’ Evidently a lot has gone unsaid between Hazel and her son, with Vince finding himself lightly questioned by Des about the frequency of his communication with his mother. ‘Come on though, couple of e-mails a month, is that enough? Every morning she checks the inbox,’ he tells Vince. Vince insists that he and Stuart just don’t stop long enough in one place to make communication that easy. ‘I’ve got my laptop, I make a bit of money designing websites. You can do it on the move,’ he points out.
But there’s clearly more to his new life than he is letting on. Vince has a lot of money and is coy about exactly how a job designing websites would provide for him so well. In a bar later that evening the changes in Vince are made more explicit. Alexander gets sworn at by a man who barges past, which he takes in his stride, but Vince has a rather different perspective. There is ‘a glint in Vince’s eyes, a coldness. Danger notching up with every line.’ A brief argument ensues between Vince and the man, who claims that Alexander acts too much like a ‘fucking poof’. ‘So my friend’s the wrong sort of gay, is that it?’ says Vince, only for the man to call Alexander a ‘freak’. The script specifies: ‘Trigger word. For all the danger, it’s a complete surprise as Vince swings a sudden expert punch, hits the bloke right in the face.’ This is a new Vince; something has clearly changed, with this obviously not being a one-off occurrence for him. ‘Vince just stands his ground, utterly unscared,’ the script continues. Hazel is scared, ‘like she doesn’t know him at all.’
The burning question, of course, is what happened between Vince and Stuart after the events of QAF2. Their relationship status is even unclear to Hazel but, true to form, Alexander has no qualms about being direct in his questioning. ‘Look, I’m the only one who’s gonna ask,’ he says. ‘What’s going on with you and Stuart Jones?’ Vince is evasive, so Alexander clarifies: ‘Are you shagging?’ Vince simply replies that “We’re together’, saying that ‘You’ve just got to be there.’ Hazel, having had a drink, manages to be more direct than she has been earlier. ‘’Cept we’re not, are we? So we’re never going to know. End of story.’ She is described as being ‘like a time bomb’, and explodes shortly after. ‘You fuck off, you up sticks and fuck off and I don’t know a thing, it’s all gone and you don’t give a toss,’ Hazel shouts at Vince.
Unlike the Vince of old, who grumpily received insults from all and sundry, he retaliates when she complains that he hadn’t just left for London, as was Stuart’s initial plan, but left her outright. ‘I’d get people laughing at me, d’you know that?’ he says. ‘Cos every night I’d go out and there was my mother, I’d get shags laughing in my face, you’re the bloke with the mother, how embarrassing was that - ?’ There is no apology, but they make up with each other later.
No further clarification of his relationship with Stuart or his changed character is forthcoming, which is perhaps fortunate for those who enjoyed pondering on the nature of the love between Vince and Stuart as finally manifested at the end of QAF2. At one point Vince reads through the emails he has sent his mother; ‘From: Stuart&Vince, the two names in a column, repeated over and over. One every subject line, a different city: Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, etc. [Close up on] Vince. Haunted by his other life.’ Precisely what he was being haunted by is unclear, and the two finished scripts are tantalizing in this regard. But even had a full series been completed it seems likely that there would have been no further clarification. Whether it was a sexual love, or a more complex form of deep friendship, is still open to debate. Indeed, the question is complicated even more by the appearance of new character Mickey.
Mickey Stroud is a 23-year-old junior doctor, ‘full of energy, sexy in an untidy sort of way.’ When we first meet him he s his treating an eight-year-old girl, but he is more interested in her father, a ‘sexy fucker’. He insists on checking out the father’s groin strain, although not out of any concern for his well-being. Afterwards he says to the nurse, ‘Just you wait, he’ll go home, think about me, have a wank, then punch the wife. Guaranteed!’ Highly sexed, Mickey lives with his boyfriend Steve, ’20, tall, smart. Very handsome, but that’s all.’ But their relationship is an open one, on Mickey’s side at least. When he meets Vince there is an attraction. Shortly after they are properly introduced, they go out onto Canal Street away from the others. ‘Then with absolute confidence – the opposite of his old self – Vince reaches out, takes hold of Mickey’s arm, pulls him in. Kisses him. Deep, strong, snog. Not just grappling for sex, a powerful connection.’
The two have sex, but it’s always clear that there is no particular emotional attachment on either side. There is an implication that Hazel has manipulated the pairing in the hope that it will keep Vince in Manchester. But the man that Vince is now does not have any interest in standing still or settling down. Of course, the ease with which Vince sleeps with another man adds yet another complication to the question of exactly what the relationship between him and Stuart is. Vince finds the idea that there is a future between him and Mickey preposterous. ‘Sod Stuart Jones, not him. I’m in love with Mickey Stroud. Thought you all knew that,’ he jokes. ‘You can forget America, I’m gonna stay and move in with him and live happily ever after. We could live down the road, pop in every day.’ Then he makes his point more bluntly. ‘I mean. He’s a kid, he’s nice enough but he’s a kid. I’ve shagged him a few times, can I stop now?’
It’s impossible to second-guess the likely reaction to Misfits had it been made, but certainly Davies’ scripts are strong. Although very firmly placed within the QAF universe, there is enough of a shift of emphasis to make it out as a separate entity to its forebear. Much of its black humour remains intact. (When Des speaks of his late wife, he tells the story of her death, when an elephant attacked her minibus during a visit to Kenya. ‘Stamped on,’ he tells Hazel’s household. ‘That’s awful, that’s completely awful,’ Vince empathizes. A beat, then he asks, ‘What happened to the elephant?’) Its ability to mix bold and outrageous stories with potent character moments also seems to be in place, with Mickey being at least as sexually confrontational as Stuart. Despite this, it is also worth considering whether the shift of emphasis away from an almost exclusively gay cast of characters to more general ‘misfits’ would have allowed to series to cross over the mainstream.
But perhaps the most problematic element of the programme would have been the initial emphasis on Vince. After such a deliberately enigmatic finale to QAF2, it is difficult to accept the ‘official’ line on what sort of person Vince became. Although it is deliberately left vague, and there is no indication that there will be further clarification in later episodes, Vince is the character it was easiest to form an emotional attachment to. By developing the character, and stripping away so much of what made him ‘Vince’ in the first place, there is a chance that sections of the audience would have been disappointed.
Sooo, what do you think? New questions arising? Muses inspired? Let's hope so...
Hugs
xof
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