Series / Hardy Bucks

L-R:Francis "The Viper" Higgins, Billy "Buzz" McDonnell, Eddie Durkan, "Frenchtoast" O'Toole, and Tommy "The Boo" Hagen

"Women, bluies, fightin’, bit of schmokin’…lookin’ for anymore and you’re only being greedy. Like god often said, don’t be too greedy."

— Billy "Buzz" McDonnell

"What's the craic?"

— Everyone

A mockumentary comedy set in the fictional town of Castletown, County Mayo, Ireland, centered around four friends; Eddie Durkan (Martin Maloney), Billy “Buzz” McDonnell (Owen Colgan), “Frenchtoast” O’Toole (Peter Cassidy), and Tommy “Boo” Hagen (Tom Kilgallon).

The Show follows Eddie and Buzz, best friends and roommates, and their misadventures as they search for good craic, and pursue various get-rich-quick schemes with the help of pals Frenchtoast and The Boo. The show also follows Eddie’s arch-nemesis Francis “The Viper” Higgins (Chris Tordoff), a small-time drug dealer, always looking to ruin Durkan’s schemes.

Created by Maloney, Tordoff and Colgan, the show originally premiered as a Web Original series in 2008 after Tordoff uploaded the videos they had created for a college class to YouTube. The series was picked up for television by RTÉ in 2010 and eventually also spawned The Movie in 2013. The show is a bit of a Spiritual Successor to Trailer Park Boys, as the creators themselves had stated they were influenced by the Canadian series.

---

The following tropes are good craic:

• Affably Evil: Unlike his business partner Aloysius, Seamus Mortimer usually comes off as this, as he generally decent to most people in most situations (with the exception of Eddie Durkan and Salmon)
• The Alcoholic: Most of the main cast, especially Frenchtoast and Lexus.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Frequently. The most glaring example is when Eddie drunkenly invites everyone he knows to brunch with the ex-girlfriend he is trying to patch things up with.
• The Antagonist: The Viper is this towards Eddie Durkan. While no one else likes him, he never goes out of his way to antagonize anyone else in the cast, but constantly tries to irritate and anger Eddie.
• Arc Words: “What’s the craic?”
• Bad Boss: Aloysius and Seamus definitely qualify for Salmon. They force him to wait on them hand and foot, refuse to give him any time off even for his own stag, or for Christmas. Aloysius even tries to steal his girlfriend right in front of his face, insulting Salmon the entire time.
• Berserk Button: Do NOT hit on Svetlana, especially in front of Salmon. She will not take it well. just ask Aloysius.
• Big Damn Heroes: Big Mick in the Christmas episode, when he brings the leftover turkey to the boys.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: mentioned as a reason Salmon gets women.
• Bittersweet Ending: Season 2 ends with Salmon getting married and the entire town celebrating, but Eddie is finally going off to America, causing the Hardy Bucks to break up.
• Blatant Lies: When Buzz walks in on The Boo flirting with a self-defense dummy, he asks what is going on. The Boo states he is on the phone.
• Body Double: The Viper invokes this with The Viper 2, an actor he pays to take his place around town.
• Breakout Character: Francis “The Viper” Higgins quickly became very popular. Tordoff even does the character on his own series on RT (formerly Russia Today).
• Butt-Monkey: The Viper invokes this at least once a season. Season 2 ends with The Viper stripped naked, and chased down the street by the Sligo boys, after already becoming the town joke. Season 3 ends with him peeing himself then getting tied to playground equipment hand being spanked by everyone there, and the video posted all over the internet. Season 4 has him being reported as murdered by a ladyboy hooker in Thailand, then outed as faking his own death, and having a casket full of rocks fall on him, leaving him in a full body cast.
• Christmas Episode: Season 1 ends with this, as the lads gather together around the house during a winter storm.
• Cool Car: The Shkylark. First owned by Durkan, then by The Viper.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Aloysius and Seamus.
• Creepy Crossdresser: Jimmy ‘The Hammer’ Harrington
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Buzz just will not stop talking back to the Magistrate, even though every time he speaks up, he gets more hours of community service added to his sentence. He ends up with an extra 100 hours of community service.
• The Dragon: The Viper has a Dragon named Dragon, actually.
• The Dreaded: Boris in season 1 to Eddie. The Sligo Boys to The Viper.
• Dry Crusader: Frenchtoast becomes one of these when he gives up the drink.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The web series has some of this. Aloysius being much creepier, Frenchtoast loving golf and being a serial protestor are all dropped fairly early. Also The Boo’s love of guns is dropped.
• Even Evil Has Standards
• Everybody Must Get Stoned: This is the plot of “The Stag” where the entire party gets high on ‘Woof-Woof’ and totally forgets about Salmon’s Stag party instead chasing cattle down the street in a drug-fueled haze.
• Extreme Libido: Eddie’s girlfriend Ciara is a diagnosed sex addict. Buzz when he takes too much of an “enhancement drug”, to the point where he is trying to have sex with punching bags.
• Faking the Dead: The Viper attempts this in season 4
• Fantastic Drug: The aforementioned “Woof-Woof”, a possibly deadly drug, untested on humans, that The Viper and SimCard end up selling around town. It makes users go absolutely wild.
• Fidelity Test: Ciara uses the orgy as one of these for Eddie.
• Getting High on Their Own Supply: The Viper insists it should not be done, but unfortunately his employees do not listen. His Ice Cream and Hash business fails because SimCard smokes all the weed and Stateside eats all of the ice cream.
• Granola Girl: Ladybird
• Humiliation Conga: The Viper goes through a few of these. In short time he loses all of his money, loses his van trying to get his money back, his underlings leave him, and finally he ends up getting publicly belted on the street.
• Idle Rich: Subverted. Aloysius and Seamus are both seen working frequently. In fact Seamus is involved in just about everything we see.
• Innocently Insensitive: Eddie pulls this off at Salmon’s wedding. He puts up an Irish Flag and a USSR flag together. Svetlana’s family are not amused since Russia is not the USSR. Eddie did not know and got the idea from Rocky IV.
• Insistent Terminology: Seamus insisting that the Champagne is NOT Champagne, since real champagne is only from the Champagne region of France.
• Jerkass: The Viper intentionally invokes this towards Eddie Durkan. Aloysius.
• Kavorka Man: Salmon. Shy geeky guy missing a tooth, somehow has an “improbably hot” Russian girlfriend, and later wife.
• Limited Wardrobe: Buzz to a degree as he is almost always wearing a Gaelic Football jersey. Also, intentionally invoked by The Viper, who almost exclusively wears a shirt with a viper on the front.
• Loan Shark: Boris from Season 1.
• Metaphorgotten:
  “It’s like Tom Hanks and the boys said. Life is like a chocolate bar. You never know which one the aul lady is gonna get ya.”
  — Eddie Durkan
• Mockumentary
• Old Money: When Aloysius is first introduced, he mentions how his family built their empire in Castletown a century back.
• Only in It for the Money: The reason Dragon and Viper 2 work for The Viper. Also the only reason Eddie and the boys enter the King of Town competition.
• Only One Name: Several characters fit this: Boris, Salmon, Lexus.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Dragon. Stateside. Crowbar. SimCard (later subverted when we learn SimCard’s name is Brian. Just no one ever cared to ask him.)
• Perpetual Poverty: The main focus of the series is the fact the Bucks live in this, and revolves around their get-rich-quick schemes to deal with the poverty.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Very much Dragon. He is quite open he doesn’t like The Viper, and is only in it because it pays well.
• Raised by Crows: The supposed backstory of Shady Ganly.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Dragon gives one to The Viper when he finally quits.
• Road Trip Plot: The entire plot of The Movie, The bucks, along with Viper drive across Europe to cheer on the Irish National Team in Poland. Hilarity Ensues.
• Schemer: Most of the cast, but particularly Eddie Durkan and The Viper.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Dragon pulls this on The Viper when he quits.
• Series Fauxnale: The End of Season 2. Ends with Salmon getting married and the Bucks breaking up, with the series lead leaving to the US
• The Slacker: Eddie and Buzz
• Slipping a Mickey: This is done to Seamus at the wedding, with someone slipping some “woof-woof” and an erectile drug into his drink.
• Small Town Boredom: A frequent topic of the show, and often listed as a reason they drink so much.
• Smoky Gentlemen's Club: While there isn’t one of these in Castletown, Aloysius and Seamus try to act as though their business is one for them; smoking cigars, drinking wine and forcing Salmon to wait on them as a butler.
• Staging an Intervention: Inverted. The gang stage an intervention to get Frenchtoast to start drinking, since they are all sick of his Dry Crusader act.
• Status Quo Is God: After Season 2 ends with Eddie leaving and Salmon getting married, and The Viper run off Season 3 starts with the Bucks hanging out, Salmon with a new Girlfriend and The Viper dealing drugs in town. The trip to America, the wedding and anything that happen the The Viper are never mentioned…although the Sligo boys do show up again.
• Surrounded by Idiots: The Viper, after Dragon leaves and he replaces him with SimCard. Stateside and SimCard manage to keep The Viper’s business on the edge of ruin.
• Triads and Tongs: The Viper thinks he is involved with this when he starts selling drugs for what he believes in a Chinese Triad gang. Turns out he is working for the Sligo boys and doesn’t know it.
• Tropaholics Anonymous: Frenchtoast drags the boys to a meeting when he is trying to go dry.
• True Meaning of Christmas: The Christmas episodes has shades of this, as the boys manage to have a good Christmas despite having their feast stolen by The Viper, and the power going out all over town, during a big storm.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Constantly pointed out about Salmon and Svetlana.
• The Unintelligible: Shady Ganly.
• Unsuspectingly Soused: Lexus falls pray to this at the L.A. Pool Party. When Seamus says that the drink isn’t champagne (Because it isn’t from the Champagne region of France), Lexus takes it to mean that it isn’t alcohol, and drinks up.
• When I Was Your Age...: Big Mick likes to talk about this.
• Wine Is Classy: Aloysius and Seamus certainly think so.
• Work Hard, Play Hard: Big Mick brings this up when he talks about the good old days. Working hard all week, drinking hard all weekend.