Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves

Episode three
If a drama can be at once numbing and harrowing, then ‘Don’t Ever Wipe Tears…’ is that show. As the funerals mount up and Benjamin’s band of brothers dwindles, even the effervescent, irrepressible Paul cuts a diminished figure. The bereaved families, meanwhile, attempt to airbrush the past by collecting donations for cancer charities and ignoring the wishes of their loved ones. A dual narrative is also introduced, as a friend of Rasmus’s parents contacts Benjamin years later with significant news.

Despair and tragedy once again hang heavily over this unflinching depiction of prejudice, grief and death, yet it never courts sentimentality or the emotional shortcut. And one typically theatrical farewell provides an unlikely but welcome note of celebration and sense of release as this remarkable series comes to a close.