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He actually thinks he has suave spermatozoa. He characterises his sperms.

—Mark, ""The Test""

The Test
Series 06, episode 02
The test2
Episode details
Date aired 25 September 2009
Previous episode Jeremy at JLB
Next episode Jeremy in Love


The Test is the second episode of series 6 and thirty-second overall episode of Peep Show.

Plot[]

Jeremy and Mark are at a local supermarket where Jeremy eyes "Elena from the flats." Jeremy comments on how gorgeous she is, while Mark laments that her shopping choices are a virtual "car crash." Both men also lament that they really feel a baby in their life would cramp their style. Mark then excuses himself to go to Laser Commando, where he conveniently "runs into" Dobby who he knows will be there. Mark, feeling the urgency of the situation, that Gerrard has set up a date with her at a future time, immediately asks Dobby out for the night before.

At the flat, there is commotion about the boiler, in that Mark cannot seem to get it to work properly. Jeremy feels the boiler would work better if "tricked" into efficiency.

Then suddenly Sophie appears, determined to find out the paternity of her yet unborn child. She asks Mark and Jeremy to take a paternity test for her as a favor. Sophie also tells them that she slept with Jeff around the same time, so he could also be the father, thus requiring a test to settle the matter.

Jeremy gets weed from his crush Elena, a Russian emigre who lives in the building and has resigned to selling marijuana because her friend left her with a "kilo" of this weed she needs to unload. She tells him that the way drugs customers solicit for product is that they announce that they are interested in "lunch" - which is news to Jeremy. With Now, securely in Elena's flat he finds out that she has a fetish for dads, or as she calls them, "DILFs". Back in Flat 5, Mark is still fiddling about and being frustrated by the boiler, in that it's not working. Jeremy tells Mark that he has asked Elena to come down to the flat for a first date. Mark asks why they cannot meet at her place, and he says he's been visiting her twice a day for about a week and he has to switch venues. Mark grumbles that he will have to "date on top of Jeremy" as he too wants to have a date in the flat - with Dobby.

Elena with cig

Elena chats up Jeremy in his bedroom.

At that moment, two "children" come to the door asking for "lunch" with Jeremy. Mark realizes that Jeremy is now complicit in Elena's drug ploy.

Later, Jeremy's date is going very well with Elena —they have many shared interests including music and poetry - but it comes out that he is about to have a kid with a platonic friend, assuming that Sophie's baby is probably his. Jeremy then gets a call from Sophie informing him that the baby is, in fact, Mark's.

Dobby is at the flat at the same time, on a date with Mark, finally. They are watching golf on TV. She establishes that she is keeping the date light as she is also casually dating Gerrard.

Elated at Sophie's news, but at the same time not wishing to betray himself in a lie he just told, he tells Elena that the call was just to tell him that everything was OK with the baby. Mark, sticking his nose into Jeremy's room, asks if Jeremy could "have a word with Hal" and turn the heating down. Mark then sees that Jeremy is opening a bottle of champagne and asks him what's going on. Elena, then inadvertently betrays Jeremy's lie and tells Mark that Jeremy and Sophie are having the baby. Mark, not knowing that Jeremy has previously lied to Elena, is shocked indeed with this news, but is extremely happy at the same time.

Mark, confidence bolstered by this untrue news, strolls into the living room, takes Dobby into his arms, and passionately kisses her. Dobby, impressed with Mark's new panaché, however unfounded, gets excited at the idea of them having wild sex. She excuses herself into Mark's bedroom. It is at this moment that Jeremy (with Elena out of earshot in his room) enters the living room and tells Mark exactly what happened: that Sophie called him to tell him it was Mark's baby, but he lied and told Elena that it was his baby. Mark is utterly confounded by this conspiracy. He is enraged at Jeremy and in response, Jeremy offers to let him "fork" his leg. Mark opts to fork Jeremy's bag of dinner date groceries instead.

Now, filled to the brim with anxiety and rage, Mark enters his bedroom and finds Dobby under his covers, ready for their tryst. Mark's demeanor is completely changed from before and Dobby wonders if she's got it all wrong. Mark, not wanting to disappoint her (and also teeter dangerously into the prospect of needing to tell Dobby the truth) assures her that it's all ok, and he also gets under the covers with her. However, his anxiety gets the better of him and Dobby can tell by Mark's fumbling around, that he is somehow too distracted to have sex. She interprets this as Mark not having any interest in her after all. Mark again tries to provide a comforting explanation to Dobs, but then succumbs to yet another evasion - he exclaims that the apartment is too hot due to the malfunctioning boiler.

Jeremy and Elena, now in the kitchen, hear Mark pounding on the boiler in frustration. The women are unaware of the reasons for the tension, but Jeremy knows Mark is having a meltdown due to him discovering that he was the baby's father. Dobby, dressed again, asks if she can have "a massive drink of any booze you've got." Now all four are in the kitchen. Elena proposes a toast to "Jeremy's baby," the news of which now ensnares Dobby into this ring of lies as well.

Sophie now rings the doorbell, and while the boys attempt to delay, Mark relents and realizes he must open the door. Sophe enters, angry that Mark has left her at the door for such an inappropriate length of time. Sensing ignorance from Mark, she enters the kitchen frustrated at Jeremy as she suspects he never told Mark the baby was Mark's. Dobby inquires, and Mark weakly comes clean that Sophie is pregnant with what appears to be his baby. Dobby, taking both boys' statements at face value, is now utterly confused thinking that both boys are now soon-to-be-fathers, at the same time.

Elena, surprisingly figures out the poorly orchestrated gaslighting and asks Jeremy about his motives for lying. Jeremy is honest with her about why he lied, which causes her to feel touched, and again, in a yet another twist, kisses him.

Dobby, on the other hand, is less than impressed and asks Mark why he didn't tell her earlier. She doesn't believe Mark's explanation that he didn't want to "ruin the mood," and storms off.

Sophie, now alone with Mark in the living room, finally has her first conversation with Mark as true soon-to-be-parents. Mark asks Sophie if she thinks it's too hot in the flat, to which she replies it is. Mark, needing a win, shouts to Jeremy that he knew he was right all along about the flat's temperature.

Supporting cast[]

✝︎ non-speaking part

Trivia[]

  • The flat that Elena stays at is ostensibly the one owned by Gail, and it is seen on the door that it is flat 2. But in later episodes, Gail is said to be the occupant of flat 16.
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