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Nancy, listen. The only reason that I don't go to church is that, to me, everything's a church. This room is my church. The hall is my church. Costcutters is a bloody cathedral.

—Jeremy, ""Local Zero""

Local Zero
Series 2, episode 3
Vlcsnap-5905901
Episode details
Date aired 26 November 2004
Previous episode Jeremy Makes It
Next episode University Challenge

Local Zero is the third episode of series 2, and ninth overall episode of Peep Show.

Summary[]

Jeremy wants to become an official couple with Nancy but she tells him she can't be his girlfriend unless he has a religion and helps the needy. Jeremy pretends that he is spiritual, but Nancy tells him she doesn't believe him.

Mark sees Sophie and Jeff flirting at work, and manages to make friends with the security guard so that he can watch them in the supply closet while they start making out. He gets home with a tape of the incident.

Jeremy begins helping Nancy give food to the homeless, pretending that he has been doing it all along and she just never noticed. He memorizes Bible quotes to try and impress her. Nancy begins, albeit reluctantly, to call Jeremy her boyfriend. Mark learns that Sophie and Jeff have had a falling out, so when Alan Johnson selects them to go on a business trip together, Mark tells Johnson that he should go in the place of Jeff, and Johnson agrees. However, Mark still ends up spying on Jeff and Sophie mini golfing while having a picnic in the park.

He later realizes, while watching television, that a news special about alcoholism filmed him drinking in the park, negating the fact that he was also eating food, including "three different flavors of crisps and scotch eggs". The next day at work, everyone, including Johnson, a recovering alcoholic, thinks Mark has a drinking problem. Johnson says he can't trust Mark to go on the business trip unless he joins a support group for alcoholics.

Meanwhile, Nancy tells Jeremy that she would prefer to be abstinent, as it is the "last taboo" not to have sex. At the soup kitchen, Nancy befriends a homeless man named Nim while helping him fill out his forms. Jeremy gets jealous and rips up Nim's forms. When he finds out that Nancy wants to let Nim live with her, Jeremy offers to house him, if only to get him away from her.

David Mitchell and Trevor Laird S2E3 Local Zero

Mark bribes the security crew to record Jeff punching him on the security cameras.


When Mark realizes his conservative father is coming to visit, he tells Nim to leave. Jeremy manages to seduce Nancy into breaking her vow, but Nancy get furious and believes that Jeremy has ejected Nim from the house, before they start having sex again.

When Mark meets Sophie at the bar to celebrate their upcoming business trip, Johnson sees him drinking and tells him he is no longer allowed to go on the business trip. Mark wants to make sure Jeff gets fired so he can't take his place, so he taunts Jeff to get him to hit him, in hopes that security would have taped it. However, a new security guard is in place and he did not tape it. Mark goes back into the room to try to get Jeff to hit him again, but Jeff refuses.

Supporting cast[]

Uncredited co-stars[]

  • John Warman as Alcoholic

Trivia[]

  • The existence of Mark's parents are officially established in this episode, albeit they just speak to him over the phone. Mark is later heard to say that he will meet his father at the train station, suggesting that they indeed meet up in this episode, again off-screen.
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