The murderous comedy drama continues, as the stag party from Hell continues to lose members.
When the first episode ended, the party who were meant to be hunting a stag in the Scottish Highlands, have found themselves being held hostage by the gamekeeper (James Cosmo) who was supposed to help them. Only five members of the party are still alive: nice geography teacher Ian (Jim Howick), groom Johnners (Stephen Campbell Moore), best man Ledge (JJ Field), the secretly gay Mexican (Amit Shah), and TV exec Cosmo (Rufus Jones).
The gamekeeper is angry because his dog is missing, and orders the party to remain in the house while he tries to find her. Cosmo decides to make a run for it, while the rest of the party barricade themselves in the house for protection and help themselves to the gamekeeper’s whisky, while still carrying out childish stag forfeits for not drinking while sticking their little fingers out. Things take an unexpected turn however when the party is gate-crashed by new character Christoph (Christiaan Van Vuuren), an Australian that Ledge cannot stand and thus didn’t invite to the party. Quickly the balance of power changes, with loyalties between Ledge and Christoph split between the rest of the party. As the party attempt to flee for their lives after finding a map, Ian starts to worry that Christoph might be the killer.
As with the last episode, the best thing about this episode is the characters, who are at first are mostly unlikable, but as their crisis grows you understand that each has their own problems. One of the best scenes is between the Ledge and the Mexican, in which Ledge contemplates suicide and believes he has done the least among everyone in the party, while the Mexican finally manages to come out. The scene is still able to deliver some comedy when they try to flee down a steep slope, by tying a rope around themselves and catching a tree on the way down.
There is also the introduction of the character of Christoph, a character that the viewer, as well as Ian, is designed to be suspicious of, but as the story moves along you begin to realise that things are a lot more complicated than you think. The end of the episode moves along at a dramatic pace with even more deaths from the mysterious killer. It is all shaping up to a thrilling conclusion.
Stag is on BBC Two at 21.00 on Saturday nights.
