Normal People

You should go and talk to someone.

Are you sleeping?

There's like, uh, like a service.

It's free. You might as well.

Connell?

Would you like to come with me?

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,

five, four, three, two, one.

Happy New Year!

- Happy New Year! - Happy New Year.

Happy New Year, you.

- Who is it? - Uh, it's just an old school friend.

You okay?

Uh, yeah. It's just a Happy New Year thing.

Happy New Year!

What do you mean?

Are you on your own?

No, I'm with Helen. What do you mean, a body?

- Whose body, what? - Rob Hegarty, sweetheart.

They pulled a body out of the river this morning.

Okay, why don't we talk about how you're feeling.

Uh, yeah, not great.

I'm sorry to hear that.

When did you start feeling this way?

Uh...

a couple of months ago.

January, I suppose.

Okay.

Did something happen then, or did it just

come out of nowhere, do you feel?

A friend of mine killed himself in January.

A friend from school.

I'm very sorry to hear that, Connell.

We, we hadn't really kept up with each other after college.

'Cause he was, uh... He was just back in Sligo

and I was up here and everything, and, um...

I guess I just feel guilty that I wasn't in touch with him more.

I can understand that.

But however you might be feeling about your friend,

what happened to him is not your fault.

You are not responsible for the decisions he made.

I never even replied to the last message he sent me.

When you lose someone to suicide,

it can be natural to wonder if there's any more you could have done

in order to help this person.

I'm sure everyone in your friend's life

is asking themselves the same questions now.

Yeah, but at least other people tried to help him.

He'd, uh, been drinking a fair bit.

He seemed a bit, um... you know, out of sorts, I guess.

- Right. - Never wanted to go home, you know?

He always wanted one more.

Got into a few scraps.

Nothing serious, just... thought it was a laugh.

I tried talking to him, but...

You look handsome.

Ready, sweetheart?

Marianne.

Thank you.

- I'm so sorry. - Thanks for the colors. You look great.

Thank you.

I'm so sorry.

Thanks, love. Thanks for coming.

Connell. Good man, good man.

I hear you're doing great things above in Trinity.

- So sorry. - Good man.

Thanks for coming.

Thank you.

How are things?

- Who's this? Uh... - Helen. Uh, this is Eric.

- Girlfriend, is it? - Yeah.

Must be your fault this fella never comes home anymore.

No, it's not her fault. It's my fault.

I'm just messing.

Good of Marianne to come.

I thought she was off in Sweden or someplace.

Yeah, she was. She's back for the funeral.

She's gone very thin, hasn't she?

Here's herself.

Very good to have come all the way from Sweden, Marianne.

It's nice to see you.

Do you know Helen here?

Course I do. We were in college together.

Hello, Helen.

It's all friendly, I hope.

- No rivalry, I mean. - Behave yourself now.

Why didn't you introduce me to any of your friends?

- I introduced you to Eric, didn't I? - Only after he asked.

To be honest, you didn't seem like you really wanted him to meet me.

If you didn't want me to come, you shouldn't have asked me.

Okay, I'm sorry I asked you, then.

What does that mean?

- You're sorry I was there? - No.

I'm saying if you got the wrong impression

of what it was gonna be like, then I'm sorry.

You didn't want me there at all, did you?

I didn't want to be there myself, to be honest.

Look, I'm sorry you didn't have a good time. But like, it was a funeral.

Don't really know what you expected.

- Well, you weren't ignoring Marianne. - I wasn't ignoring anyone.

But you just seemed particularly happy to see her.

- For fuck's sake, Helen. - What?

I mean, does every argument have to come back to this?

Our friend just killed himself, and now, you want to start

going at me about Marianne. Like, seriously?

And yeah. I was happy to see her. Does that make me a monster?

I've been very sympathetic about Rob and you know that.

But what do you expect me to do? Just pretend I don't notice

you're staring at another woman in front of me.

- No, I was not staring at her. - You were, in the church.

It wasn't intentional.

Why do you have to act so weird around her?

How I act with her is my normal personality.

I'm... maybe I'm just a weird person.

Most of you will, I hope, have picked up on the fact that...

This dismantling of the family trope is fairly radical.

The constitution itself quite literally defined the Irish...

Like I want to be there for you but you just won't let me.

I have tried.

And I feel like I'm holding on to other, like,

frankly legitimate worries or whatever

that existed before all this.

Before you felt like this.

And I can't sit on them 'cause you're feeling so low. That's just not fair.

I really care about you.

I hate seeing you like this.

But I don't think this is working anymore.