1990 drama written by John Byrne as a follow-up to Tutti Frutti, albeit in the form of a Spiritual Successor rather than a sequel. Cissie Crouch teams up with local food critic and part-time investigative journalist, Frank McCluskey to find the out truth about the imprisonment of her husband Dorwood, who just happens to be a member of local country and western band, Dorwood Crouch and the Deadwood Playboys.
Provides examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Cissie apparently lost custody of Thomas because of her alcoholism. She's in recovery and very deliberately doesn't touch a drop despite working in a restaurant with a busy bar.
- All Bikers are Hells Angels: The Loons of Lucifer are a motorcycle gang in the Hell's Angels mould.
- Alliterative Name: Jolene Jowett has one.
- Ambiguous Situation: Does Cissie want help exonerating Dorwood purely because she loves him and believes in his innocence, or is it just because she thinks she has a better chance of getting Thomas back with Dorwood out of jail?
- Art Deco: The Bar L Diner has an Art Deco interior left by the previous owner, an Italian ice cream parlour called Ragazzo's.
- Attempted Rape: Fraser shows up at Cissie's flat to collect his fee for smuggling Dorwood out of the country. He forces his way in and asks after Thomas, who Cissie does not want to talk about, and berates her about her alcoholism. He and Cissie get into a physical fight, which soon shifts to him trying to kiss Cissie and pull off her shirt even as she tells him no. Cissie's only able to escape by way of a Defensive Feint Trap. She acts as though she's about to go down on him just long enough to throw a mug of hot tea over his dick before running out of her flat.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- The first scene of the first episode shows Cissie and Dorwood sitting across from each other in silence in a visiting room at a prison. Cissie's wearing a stereotypical black and white striped shirt with a number on it. When the bell signals the end of the visit, it's Dorwood who's escorted back to his cell by the warden. Cissie's just dressed for her job at the The Bar L Diner.
- The Tragic Keepsake photo Cissie keeps of her son, Thomas, suggests that he might be dead but it's later revealed that he's alive and in living with a foster family in Aberdeen.
- Culturally Religious: Like Tutti Frutti, it's hinted that at least some of the major characters are Catholic without it being stated explicitly. Frank and Fraser both attended the same Catholic school.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to Tutti Frutti, both in its thematic elements and in the fact that many of the scenes take place at night.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The opening theme song is a cover of "Your Cheatin' Heart" sung by Tilda Swinton.
- Emasculated Cuckold: Dorwood is paranoid about Cissie cheating on him. He's also so insecure about his masculinity that when he and Cissie are stranded on the motorway together, he refuses to wear Cissie's jacket when she offers it to him because it's a girl's jacket, even though he's clearly risking hypothermia by doing so.
- Fall Guy: Cissie believes that Fraser is the real culprit behind the crime that got Dorwood locked up.
- Feet-First Introduction: Although it isn't the very first shot we see of him, Fraser Boyle's introduction emphasises his snakeskin cowboy boots.
- Fictional Counterpart: The Evening Echo is based on the Glasgow Times newspaper, which at the time was known as The Evening Times. Frank himself is loosely based on Diner Tec, the paper's long-serving restaurant critic who writes under his Pen Name in the style of a Hardboiled Detective.
- Foreshadowing: The first song The McPhail Sisters sing at The Cactus Club is "The Wild Side of Life" by Frank Thompson, which is a song about a man whose wife has gone back to her old life as a drifter after their marriage failed. In the final episode, Cissie cuts herself loose from everyone in her past, including Dorwood and Thomas, and walks off alone into an uncertain future.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Fraser implies that he's Thomas' biological father, since he and Cissie apparently had sex on several occasions while Fraser was away working as a deep-sea diver.
- Missed Him by That Much: In Aberdeen, Frank and Cissie find the house where Thomas is living with his foster family. They wait to see if Cissie can catch a glimpse of him through one of the windows, but she says that they're too late and that Thomas will already be asleep. After they turn around and leave, Thomas' foster mother lifts him up to the window ledge to close the curtains. The final scene where Cissie walks away alone on the seafront, she just misses passing Thomas and his foster mother out on a walk.
- Questionable Consent: Just how drunk was Cissie on those occasions when she and Fraser had sex while Dorwood was away working offshore?
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: Cissie never gets the chance to see Thomas one last time after he's taken into care.
- Old Shame: Jolene is horrified at the idea of Billie telling anyone that she ever wore a poncho.
- Pen Name: Frank writes his food column under the name, Rab Haw, a Glasgow folk legend famous for his gluttony.
- Plot-Based Voice Cancellation: When they run into each other in the Gents at the Bar L Diner, Frank telling Fraser about what he's been doing with himself since they last saw each other gets drowned out by the sound of a hand-dryer.
- Punny Name: The Bar L Diner takes its name from the nickname from HMP Barlinnie, where Dorwood just happens to be locked up.
- Shout-Out:
- When Billie mistakenly dates the décor at the The Bar L to 1950 rather than 1920, Frank's response is "Bevis Hillier, you ain't, Shorty." Bevis Hillier was a well-known art historian.
- Frank sings a bit of "Heartbreak Hotel" while the in Gents at The Bar L.
- At The Bar L, Jolene jokes to David that he should let her know if he's going to play any Jim Reeves numbers so she can make a quick exit.
- Billie and Jolene perform two songs at the Cactus Club - "The Wild Side of Life" by Hank Thompson and the "The Prisoner's Song".
- According to Frank, Gordon Smart was a fan of Wishbone Ash and the Beverly Sisters.
- Billie and Jolene get into a minor argument about a poncho Jolene's mum knitted for her and weather or not the pattern came from Woman's Realm or Red Star Weekly. Billie also quips that Jolene had wanted to look like Emmylou Harris and ended up looking more like Rolf Harris.
- When Billie tries to remember what song Cissie performed with her and Jolene when she was singing on the C&W a decade ago, she mentions "Pistol Packin' Mama" by Bing Crosby and "Tennessee Wig Walk" by Bonnie Lou.
- When Frank asks Cissie how Dorwood managed to get landed with a seven-year jail sentence, he jokingly asks if it was for doing a cover of "Tiny Bubbles" by Don Ho.
- Cissie mentions Fraser "singing two verses of "Old Shep"" at one point.
- Dorwood owns a lot of country music memorabilia, so several artists like Randy Travis, The Everly Brothers and Slim Whitman get a mention in relation to this. He even stashes his redundancy money in an antique Gene Autry wireless.
- Stock "Yuck!": All Frank has to offer Cissie to eat at his flat is toast and Marmite.
- Suspiciously Apropos Music: When Fraser shows up at Cissie's flat and berates her about her alcoholism, "One Day at a Time" by Lena Martell starts playing on the radio. Fraser cruelly jokes to Cissie that they're playing her song.
- Titled After the Song: The series is named after the Hank Williams song.
- Tragic Dream: Dorwood had been hoping to use his redundancy money to start a new life in Nashville with Cissie and Thomas. Unfortunately, this involved paying Fraser to smuggle him out of the country on the Wild Bunch's tour bus, which doesn't go according to plan. He had originally planned to go the States first and send for Cissie and Thomas once he was settled, but he never elaborates on whether or not this would have involved Cissie regaining custody of Thomas or, more likely, kidnapping him from his foster family and fleeing the country.
- Trash of the Titans: Frank's flat, a former office that's only been minimally converted into residential property, is absolutely overflowing with rubbish.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Hinted at with Fraser when Frank mentions that he heard he was training to become a priest, which is a far cry from being a drug-dealing fishmonger.
- Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Journalist Tamara McAskill goes on her evening rounds in the Evening Echo radio car wearing a full tartan cape and Glengarry hat.
- Wrench Wench: Billie McPhail, who prefers to try and fix her cab herself rather than call for a garage.
