Time is running short before the fourth series of Trying begins, but I have finally completed my rewatch of the existing episodes and gathering the wonderful quotes from each episode. I love this show so much, I have to share! This time I’m keeping a full season in one post rather than splitting between episodes, because who doesn’t want a bumper crop of quotes to persue?

Episode 1

Picking your future family on a website can be tricky:

Jason: We’re never going to find a kid. Ellie’s gone, she only came on the site yesterday.

Nikki: They go so quickly. It’s like trying to get Glastonbury tickets!

Another time where I relate with Nikki SO HARD.

Jason: What’s going on?

Nikki: I don’t want to say because if I tell you then that makes me a terrible person and not being a terrible person is the thing I like most about myself.

It’s hard to raise boys in the modern world. Here, Jason is trying to list terrible women to offset Nikki’s list of terrible men.

Nikki: Three women in and you’re back to the 16th century, I could name you five men off tonight’s news.

Jason: But none of them are four year old boys are they?

Nikki: No, but they were once and then society just came in and messed them all up. How can I compete with society? It’s bloody everywhere.

The gender differences continue:

Nikki: Yea, because girls tell you what they’re feeling, they know how to ask for help.

Jason: Do they bollocks. They just sit on the sofa hugging a cushion sighing louder and louder until someone asks you what’s wrong.

Episode 2

Wedding dress shopping!

Mum: Take your watch off.

Karen: Why?

Mum: You don’t wear a Casio watch with a £2,000 wedding dress.

Karen: Well how will I know what time it is?

Dealing with London tourists.

Nikki: Marble Arch? Why would you want to go see Marble Arch, it’s shit. Where are you from?

Tourist: Paris.

Nikki: Paris? You’ve come from Paris to see Marble Arch? Are you insane? Just stand further away from the Arc de Triomphe!

Episode 3

This episode, with a funereal visit to Cornwall, was more emotional than quotable. The scene smashing up the shed is SO good.

Karen: Not all teachers are like Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds. Some of us are just doing it for the 12 weeks holiday.

Episode 4

Two amazing non-quotes from this episode:

• Jason and Nikki pretending to be Texan surveyors who have dropped in to the school to make sure the playground is level.
• Erica getting the obnoxious guy to demonstrate push ups in the bar and then just walking out.

Episode 5

And we’re back to relating to Nikki again:

Jason: Bit of wildlife?

Nikki: Yea. Have you fastforwarded?

Jason: Yea.

Nikki: No animals die?

Jason: No. Gekko maybe.

Nikki: That’s okay, I can’t really warm to geckos… Aww.

Jason: What?

Nikki: I just feel sorry for fish, they always look so cold. It’s no life, is it?

Jason: What’s it like having empathy for every single thing?

Nikki: Oh God, Jason, it is absolutely exhausting. I can’t even look at elephants anymore.

Vic continuing to connect via the means of DIY:

Vic: Where’s your angle driver?

Jason: I haven’t got an angle driver.

Vic: How can you not have an angle driver? Alright, I suppose I can make do with your diamond core drill.

Jason: I haven’t got one of those either.

Vic: You’re not using an SDS drill for masonry work, are you?

Jason: Who do you think I am, dad?

And later, lovely Penny giving Vic advice can only warm your heart.

Episode 6

This ends up with a room full of home-made pom-poms:

Nikki: I need something to occupy my brain because it starts to do that fizzy thing when I worry.

Another distraction in the form of spying on the competition:

Nikki: Is this stalking?

Jason: No, it’s not stalking, we’re just following him to see what he does.

And just want to mention Scott, whose reaction to finding out Karen has lied to him is so lovely. It’s the first time we really see that he’s a human being and maybe, just maybe, a nice one.

Episode 7

When your name becomes a verb:

Jason: Hi babe, it’s me, I need your help.

Nikki: What’s happened?

Jason: I’ve Jason’d it when I should have Nikki’d it and now it’s like the worst stag do ever and Scott seems really upset.

Vic being Vic again:

Vic: Your mum says I have to do one new thing a day. So if I do this, I don’t have to eat the moussaka.

Jason: That’s the spirit.

Although we warmed to Scott last episode, it’s still a rollercoaster ride:

Scott: I use big fancy words when they’re not strictly parametric…

Episode 8

This is my favourite bit of the entire two series so far - the juxtaposition between how the men and women are preparing for the wedding:

Nikki: Can you get signal here?

Jason: I don’t know, I’ve had my phone switched off so I can enjoy the spa.

Nikki: There’s a spa?

Jason: Yea, over there by the orangery.

Nikki: There’s an orangery?

Jason: Yea, right behind the sun terrace.

Nikki: There’s a… no, okay, stop.

Wedding day nerves:

Karen: I don’t like lots of people looking at me.

Nikki: Right. Aren’t you a teacher?

Karen: Children aren’t people.

And finally, just a mention to the moment in the post-wedding disco where the music stops to play an ad… because she won’t subscribe to ad-free just for one night. Perfection.