Years and Years, episode 2 recap: well, there was no nuclear war but that didn't stop a disaster

After last week's episode ended on the jaw-dropping detonation of a nuclear bomb by President Trump, we didn't, in fact, end up in full-blown war in Russell T Davies's epic family saga. No more nuclear weapons were fired – but bombs went off in several characters’ lives instead.

The bomb claimed 45,000 casualties – and will eventually take a Lyons life too

Last week’s tumultuous opening episode ended with the US nuking the disputed South China Sea island of Hong Sha Dao – accompanied by an apocalyptically earth-moving gay sex scene.

As political activist Edith Lyons (Jessica Hynes) usefully explained to her family via video chat: “America has turned a trade war into an actual war.” Luckily, the world hadn’t come to an end like the Lyons family feared. Well, it would have made the rest of this six-part series tricky for a start.

We picked up events six months later to learn that China had backed down after sustaining 45,000 casualties. “Like after Hiroshima, the West just carried on,” said Edith. But having been in Vietnam when it happened, then sailing towards the bomb site to capture drone footage of the destruction, shehad sustained radiation poisoning, limiting her lifespan to only 20 more years. Allegedly.

Back home, her family were in uproar. She’d not only fibbed that she was safe but they discovered the truth via a TV interview on Channel India. Oops.

Financial crisis meant Celeste lost her job

The international community had imposed sanctions, which was only causing defiant America to swing further to the right under President Mike Pence – widely seen as a puppet for predecessor Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Trump were all effectively presidents for life. “These old men are in power forever,” moaned Daniel (Russell Tovey), who seems to be saddled with most of the expositional dialogue.

This triggered a financial crisis, putting accountant Celeste (T’Nia Miller) out of work because she worked for a US-backed firm. Celeste and husband Stephen (Rory Kinnear) were forced to downsize from their swanky Islington townhouse, which didn’t go down well with their spoilt younger daughter Ruby (Jade Alleyne). If she thought that was bad, she had another shock coming…

Drone death opened door for demagogue

Watch and beware, Amazon. Rolling news showed the MP for Manchester Medlock (also the name of the fictional university where Fresh Meat was set, TV trivia fans) snipping the ribbon on a new “drone park” before absent-mindedly walking into the drone’s blades and being decapitated live on-air amid spraying ketchup.

This wasn’t just a watch-through-your-fingers moment but a chance for entrepreneur-turned-populist politician Vivienne Rook (Emma Thompson) to stand for his seat.

Rook-sceptic Daniel let out a groan – before being informed that, since the council’s housing department had been privatised and was now owned by Stone-Rook Holdings, Viv was effectively his boss. Something tells me this detail might prove significant later.

Vengeful ex grassed up Viktor

We last saw Daniel impulsively leaving his husband Ralph (Dino Fetscher), after one too many conspiracy theories from his other half, to enjoy some “post-disaster sex” (it’s a recognised phenomenon, honestly) with Ukrainian refugee Viktor (Maxim Baldry). Now they were very much an item. Viktor had applied for “leave to remain” status and, despite having an economics degree, was keeping himself sane by working cash-in-hand in a local petrol station. Sole upside: free pasties.

After more furniture-rocking sex – shades of Russell T Davies’s Queer As Folk here – dislodged a watch from a bedside table, Daniel met up with Ralph to return the timepiece. Feigning interest in his new relationship (“How’s the boy?” he asked pointedly), embittered Ralph learned about Viktor’s off-the-books job, so decided to take vindictive revenge. He secretly snapped Viktor working and reported him to the Home Office. The swine.

Jessica Hynes arrived and Rory Kinnear got his kit off

Hopping forward another six months, it was time for grandmother Muriel (Anne Reid) to host her now-traditional birthday bash – with a surprise guest of honour. So far, renegade sister Edith had only been sighted over Skype and talked about in hushed tones as semi-famous. Now she returned home after seven years abroad to a heroine’s welcome.

At the family feast, Edith busted out some booty from her travels: under-the-counter Japanese synthetic booze, which was supposed to be highly intoxicating with no after-effects. Cue the refreshed clan dancing around a campfire in the back garden (to Chumbawamba’s Nineties anthem Tubthumping, no less) and Stephen stripping off, much to his children’s embarrassment.

Judging by the next day’s hangovers, the alco-synth recipe still needed perfecting. Through the brain-fug, though, Edith admitted to niece Bethany (Lydia West) that she only had 10 years to live, not 20. No wonder she’d said earlier: “The clock’s ticking. Maybe it’s time to do something with my life instead of shouting.”

Bethany had phone at her fingertips

Troubled, introverted Bethany seemed to have grown out of her holographic face-mask phase (teens, eh?) and embarked on job in data-mining. It only served to intensity her fascination with transhumanism and technology.

Over lunch, she showed horrified mother Celeste that she’d had her smartphone implanted into her hand, via sub-dermal implants. “I am the phone. I’m integrated,” Bethany said proudly. She also eagerly introduced aunt Edith to the concept of uploading her disembodied consciousness into the Cloud, evangelising: “Don’t you know you can live forever?” Maybe they can get a family bundle deal.

No North Pole, home-working nor chocolate

Rather like his Doctor Who-rebooting days, Russell T Davies had fun giving us fleeting glimpses of an all too plausible fictional future. Climate change meant that the bird and insect populations had fallen catastrophically. The North Pole had melted away.

The conflicted Rosie spoke about how birth defects such as spina bifida could be all-but-cured by keyhole surgery and nerve tissue repair – a procedure which is actually on the cards in real life.

TV news reported on the “Towntime phenomenon”, which saw a return to nine-to-five office life rather than working from home, where people tend to “eat and masturbate” (as a home-worker myself, I can neither confirm not deny this).

“Non-milk” was sold by the litre. There was still a post-Brexit chocolate shortage. Worst of all, people in the future have lemon as a pizza topping. Come back, pineapple, all is forgiven.

The script lacked subtlety at times

As the series settles in, characters still had a tendency to lapse into “state of the nation” speechifying. Here we had several agitprop rants from Edith, while the Lyons brothers were also saddled with some clunky plot-splaining.

However, the sheer imaginative energy of Davies’s writing meant that these were easy to forgive as his vivid vision of the future was fleshed out. Pass the non-milk.

Viktor's savage deportation

Wreck-it Ralph got his revenge. Summoned to a Home Office interview via an automated midnight text message, Viktor was deported for breaking the conditions of his refugee status by illegally working.

Cruelly, he was detained and flown out the same day – one of 55 refugees shipped back to Kiev. He was advised to “live discreetly” while he launched an appeal. At home in Manchester, an indignant Daniel vowed to get him back by any means necessary.

The refugee crisis has become a recurrent theme on-screen this spring – see also Channel 4’s Home and BBC Two’s Don’t Forget the Driver. Post-Brexit TV indeed.

Bank failure brought lives crashing down

Viktor wasn’t the only one getting life-changing texts. Stephen and Celeste learned about the financial crash via 4am messages warning them that their bank was in crisis – while they had the house sale proceeds sitting in their account.

At first Stephen was unconcerned. After all, he was a financial advisor and personal friend of the bank manager. But when the couple went to their local branch and found a queue snaking around the block, they started to panic. Their mounting alarm was palpable and Stephen was soon banging on the glass door, while Celeste sprinted to another branch, only to find another angry mob – including the policeman who'd been trying to keep order.

The bank soon went under, leaving them £1.35m out of pocket, temporarily homeless and forced to move in with gran Muriel. As “the financial advisor who lost a million”, Stephen’s career was derailed too. He got little sympathy from his sisters up north but this was the stuff of middle-class nightmares.

Porn and populism propelled Rook to power

“Go Viv!” yelled Rosie (Ruth Madeley) as the blonde-bobbed demagogue’s “Rookmobile” battle bus whizzed past. Attracted by her gender, outsider status and flair for straight-talking self-promotion, Rosie rapidly became a cheerleader for the populist politician.

She watched this millionaire woman-of-the-people ascend from Have I Got News For You to Celebrity Pointless (both still on air in 2024, reassuringly), before attending the by-election hustings. Initially Rook was on the ropes, admitting she didn’t understand export tariffs and sounded vague on policy detail.

She promptly unleashed her secret weapon: an illegal, Taiwan-made, cyber-terror weapon called “a blink”, which took out all electronic devices within a 30metre radius. Rook pivoted from this into a rabble-rousing rant about children’s exposure to online pornography, promising to jail the “Silicon Valley CEOs” responsible.

Switching the crowd’s phones back on, Rook concluded: “Well then, ladies and gentlemen – tweet that.” She duly swept to victory and was elected to parliament, vowing: “This is just the beginning.”

Series hits halfway point next time

The third episode airs next Tuesday and sees Daniel hatch a risky plan, Bethany’s obsession lead her into danger and Edith embark on a secret mission. There are also the trivial matters of a General Election and a family funeral – but whose?