Something rich and strange...
written by Andrew Knight, story by Tim Pye directed by Steve Jodrell
Guest cast:
Alex Schepisi as Imogen Wilkes
Lyn's Spiel:
The background to the whole episode,
was the advent of the Pork Festival. Apparently this happens every year, it's
just that no one thought to mention it last year (Laura being out of town for
Jack's fraud hearing). But for the first time, the town has a sponsor for the
festival: "Tony's Hot Ribs". The hitch is that a few things about
the way the fair is run have to change: fine for Bob, not fine for Meredith,
who clings to the idea of tradition. This council dispute serves as background
to more personal disputes, which are also in crisis because of the effect of
the past on the present.
The first of these we see is Jack and Laura, who start the episode with a heated
argument. This continues the nuclear fallout from last weeks revelation that
Jack got Laura's sister pregnant (bastard!) Sparks fly in front of Rupert and
Miranda, both of whom are particularly disturbed by Laura's assertion that she
wants to wipe the past out of her life: 'some memories aren't worth preserving.'
This was a scary, scary scene. Even when Laura cools down, she clings to her
renouncing of the past, and the worst part of this is that we see this from
both sides. Although Laura's hurt is understandable, Rupert and Miranda both
cling to their memories of their lives as a family. In addition, Laura resolves
to forget Diver: a decision which gave me a real jolt, and reflected that although
he hasn't been mentioned in a few episodes, he's still on her mind. But on her
mind only in one sense: as she can't remember how she loved him, only that he
hurt her and hence is best forgotten. The past, Laura decides, has nothing to
offer.
The problem with forgetting Diver, is that Laura is trying to make lemon butter for the pork festival. Dan won the festival eight years running for his lemon butter, but Laura won't use his recipe. On opening the book, the title page reveals a photo of Dan and Laura (although I have to say it didn't look much like Diver at all!), and the title: 'teaching the judge to cook'. Despite Miranda's prompting, Laura slams it shut and seems resolved to do it her own way. But in the following scene, Miranda returns to the house to find Laura slumped in the kitchen, crying over the book. To the strains of the Backsliders' Down by the Riverbed (which was artfully used all last season as the 'Dan and Laura theme'), the tearful Laura wails 'He named the sticky date pudding after me!' I've never seen a scene as funny, and as utterly moving at the same time. Laura uses the recipie and wins the prize: and her hesitant friendliness to Jack at the close of the episode indicates that she hasn't forgotten the past, but found a certain perspective.
A second plot involves Max, who decides to leave Pearl Bay. The implication is that Pearl Bay is too full of memories of Elena. Instead, he's heading off to a nice war zone, despite all his earlier assertions that journalists feed off human suffering. Whatever. Anyway, there's a lovely scene between him and Laura as he departs. He goes to leave, pauses, and kisses her on the cheek. As he walks for the door, the ever paranoid Laura asks whether he told anyone about the latest chapter in the Laura/Jack/Trudi saga. Max answers, no but it's the front page of the next edition of the paper . . . and Laura reluctantly grins. Looking beautiful, but also tired I thought, and Max evidently did too because he suddenly embraces her and says harshly, 'look after yourself, and thank you.' Avoiding her gaze, he then charges out the door, and drives off to Bosnia. Fortunately, the series was saved having to find another spunk to move into the boatshed by Max's subsequent car accident with a PR Rep. I could hear Koala breathing a sigh of relief . . .
Max is then forced to hang around town for the trial, with an impossible looking plaster and brace mechanism on his arm and back. He uses the delay to ruffle Bob's plans with the sponsor, as he and Carmen plot the next issue of the Oyster. But his plans to leave are thwarted by a tragedy: the office he was going to work in is blown up, and the entire staff including the woman sent to temporarily replace him, are killed. As if Max needed more trauma in his life.
The third, and to my mind, best part of this episode was Angus. If anyone was yet to be convinced that Tom Long was a great actor, this should do the trick, and the script he had to work with was divine. The PR representative for the pork festival turns out to be Angus's ex-girlfriend, a fact that Karen figures out almost immediately. Conscious of Karen's watchful eyes, Angus arranges to meet - innocently - with her on the beach, because she has something to tell him. The news is devastating: we find out that she left Angus six years ago without explanation, and the reason was her pregnancy. 'I thought if I told you you might have wanted me to have it. I had to tell you Gussy; it's been eating me up for six years.' Although I thought the actress who played Angus's past girlfriend wasn't particularly strong, the ambivalence of her character came through. Do you condemn her for not making Angus a part of the decision, and then informing him later? Or do you sympathise for the hell she's gone through: the agony of such a choice on your own, followed by the guilt and regret?
Angus's shock, and his pain at finding this out retrospectively, are dealt with sensitively and with quiet, strong realism. There's some gorgeous photography: I particularly liked one scene which was Angus alone on the beach, watching the sun rise in silence, his expression tortured. His anger is understandable, 'You've got a hell of a nerve to come here and dumpthis on me . . . the baby was half mine. You should have told me.' He goes on an emotional journey through the course of the episode: from shock, to anger, to loss, to acceptance. Strongly acted, strongly written, and unflinching.
If you liked this episode, and don't want to think about the details, stop reading here. Because although I enjoyed watching it the first time round, there were quite a few problems with this episode. Perhaps its biggest flaw were that many scenes were overwritten. At times, the recurring theme of memory and tradition was pushed like a steamroller. As my friend Beth pointed out, how many times can Meredith say 'tradition' in a sentence? Particularly in the last scenes it all got a bit much: Laura's final comment to Jack 'take the camera. You might want to remember this', was way too explicit, and Kevin's final musings on the pig: 'some traditions just aren't worth keeping' was just as bad - I think we get it!! SeaChange episodes generally organise themselves around a particular theme (ie: memory, loss etc) and use different characters to serve as explorations of the theme from different angles. Often this works wonderfully, but this episode occasionally crossed the line into being irritating and obvious.
I also thought the sub-plot about Max's office in Bosnia being destroyed was unnecessary. Given that Max has frequently stated reservations about journalism, a more convincing and less coincidental reason for him to reject it as a career could have been used. Sure, his guilt / shock was really powerful, but I couldn't help but feel this was pretty lazy as a resolution. It would have been more effective for him to use the time after the accident to realise again that war-zone journalism is not what he wants.
A final quibble relates to the opening scene with the Jack / Laura angst session. This scene was marred for me by the fact that Jack is still claiming that Laura is complicit in their family mess. In what way, pray? Even if anyone vaguely accepted the totally lame argument about Laura's driven career focus 'forcing' Jack to sleep with Laura's sister (yeah, that stands up on causation!), that only really holds for his first infidelities pre-Pearl Bay. That he's continuing to act in such a hurtful, self-centered way can't possibly be related to Laura as ex-high powered lawyer, if it ever was. Jack's continuing to use this argument is ludicrous, and Miranda's comment that Laura wasn't without blame defied belief. Even more problematic is the fact that Jack had a far better reason to 'blame' Laura: if he slept with Trudi four months ago, this puts the affair in a time-frame around Jack's discovery of Laura and Diver. I'm not saying that this offsets Jack's behaviour in any way: just that given the already vitriolic tone of this scene, Jack could have been far more convincing than the writers allowed him to be.
Rupert's reaction to all this is also bizarre. I thought Rupert had no idea that Laura was seeing Dan, and was equally ill-informed regarding his father's infidelity with Trudy. In this episode, he seems to know about both, and seem relatively untraumatised.
But although this wasn't the best episode, it certainly wasn't bad. An interesting fact in the background: Meredith turns to Laura to judge the Pork Queen contest, because they needed 'someone of standing in the community' to do the job. A great touch, as it reveals how far Laura's come from being the stranger trying to fit in with the locals. I liked the references to Diver: it's good when a show doesn't have collective amnesia about a character that's left. It's also interesting that Jack probably has a lot to thank Diver for: as to my mind, it was Dan's sweetness that made Laura realise that forgetting the past was a bad idea. And I'm sure that Koala loved all the scenes with Max being all vulnerable. An amusing detail: when Carmen rings up the Head Office of Tony's Hot Ribs, she uses the alias 'Alice Grimshaw'; kind of like 'Alice Garner', don't you think?
My sister Jane pointed out a totally cool motif that strings together Max's and Laura's efforts to deal with memory and the present. Lemons. Think it through: at the beginning of the episode, Max gives Laura a lemon tree which was Elena's, who planned to make lemon butter. Laura herself decides to make lemon butter for the pork festival, but can't figure out a recipe. (getting herself into the kind of culinary disaster I often experience: 'well, it's just lemons and butter isn't it? How hard can it be?') After initially refusing to use Dan's recipe, she finally caves and wins the prize for best lemon butter that Diver won for the last eight years. Meanwhile, Carmen finds and prints an old report of Max, when aged ten, that he wrote about lemon butter being the best part of the pork festival. The episode ends with Max tasting Laura's lemon butter and commenting that it isn't Dan's recipe at all, it's his mother's recipe that Dan stole. And Laura daubs Max on the nose.
Conclusion? Lemons explain everything. No, really.
Lyn's Spiels © 1999 Lyn
Koala's Spiel
Well Lyn has summarised the episode so well that I don't think that it's necessary for me to outline the plot. I can do the fun part which is comment on my favourite bits. *grin*
This was a very sweet episode. I don't know whether it's the immediacy of the second season, but I am beginning to think that the second season is better than the first season! I was having this discussion with one of my bosses at work (and I have many. Bosses that is.) and we both agreed that this second season is so well-written, the characters are so well-drawn and the whole thing is just flowing together effortlessly.
In a lot of Australian dramas, the acting seems forced, the actors sound as if they are trying so hard to sound colloquially Aussie. Let's face it, if all Australian shows were as good as SeaChange, we wouldn't have to legislatively enforce minimum Australian content (For further info see, the ABA's Australian Content Standards)..
I actually care about the characters and it's a credit to the writers and the cast that they can make me almost believe that they're real.
Lyn can read me like a book. I watched with furrowed brow as I saw Max hurtling out of town. The scene between Max and Laura was very sweet and affecting, but I was too busy fretting about where Max was going and how on earth he was going to be prevented from departing. Now that I know that his departure was stopped by Angus' old flame, I can relax and enjoy the sweet banter which took place between Max and Laura. It appears as if he really did appreciate the chutney, marmalades and jams. I love Laura and Max. My friend Elizabeth was commenting to me that they really have sparks and that right from the beginning, even when Max was still with Elena, there was an interesting dynamic between the two of them.
I thought the idea of the Pork Festival was very cute. It reminds me of the scene in "To Kill A Mockingbird" where Scout dresses up like a ham. This is the second time something in SeaChange has reminded me of To Kill A Mockingbird. Weird.
I, too noted that the Pork Festival hadn't been mentioned last year, although I suppose it was plausible that Laura didn't know about it because she was out of town. One would have thought however that when she was heading off for Melbourne that someone (probably Meredith) would have exclaimed what a shame it was that she had to miss the Pork Festival. Nonetheless, we have to forgive the writers for not being able to see into the future. =)
I personally didn't see anything wrong with the Pork Festival being sponsored by "Tony's Hot Ribs". I thought Meredith was being rather fuddy duddy about the whole thing, as did Laura apparently who raised Meredith's hackles by doing the Ultimate Deed of Evil by agreeing with Bob Jelly that sponsorship was sensible. I also share the view that beauty pageants are demeaning, but "Pork Queen" is such a funny concept that I was keen to see it.
Jack compels me to mangle that well-known ditty, "The more I see you" - "The more I see you, the more I hate you" is how I feel about Jack. Does he have any redeeming qualities? In his argument with Laura, his position and attempts to rationalise his behaviour do not contain any justification whatsoever. I can understand (from somewhat bitter experience) that relationships can be strained to breaking point when one partner is in a demanding job that occupies a lot of that person's time - but Laura has seen the error of her ways. Her wrong was to have been too self-absorbed and wedded to her job, Jack's offence was one of betrayal through his infidelity. He has also made it worse by doing it again. To be fair (although I hate being fair about Jack), when he impregnated Trudi, he was a free agent. He wasn't with Laura anymore. At this point, I'm going to stop being fair and point out that it was rather feeble of him to try to come crawling back to Laura to kiss and make up when he had slept with her sister again, something he knew was something which hurt her deeply.
I'm impressed with Lyn's powers of observation in spotting the title of the cook book. I, like Miranda, was unable to shake the image of Rupert standing over the lemon tree. How many lemons were on that tree anyway? It was such a little thing, I can't believe it would have made that much butter. Perhaps I should stop being so pedantic - I was once similarly preoccupied by Mr Darcy's "two sheets of letter paper, written quite through, in a very close hand" in Pride and Prejudice which ended up spanning more than 6 pages, leading me to wonder whether his letter was like the Tardis - bigger on the inside than on the outside.... But I digress.... (BTW, you can visit Pemberley for all you ever wanted to know on Jane Austen).
Max in the ridiculous-looking plaster and brace thing looked hilarious. I like the fact that even though he's the square-jawed hero, they make him look like an idiot. It's like Laura's toe-cutting scene in The House That Jack Built - it's endearing and disarming and ensures that you don't take them too seriously in their roles as "hero" and "heroine". Max discovers that Emily, the woman who was sent to Bosnia to cover for him in his absence was killed, as were all the other office staff. Poor Max - he must have bad karma or something.
I agree with Lyn that Angus is great, and Tom Long is an excellent actor. The only problem with seeing Angus emotional is that it highlights his lack of emotion in relation to Karen. We've seen him emotional about a sandbar, we've seen him emotional about the death of an unborn child - but we've never seen him emotional about Karen. A lot of people find Karen irritating, but I like her. She's self-possessed, down to earth and pragmatic. Admittedly she's not a dreamer like Angus, but she has a lot of good qualities, and she's funny. I feel sorry for her if she's more in love with Angus than he is with her. The actress who played Imogen portrayed a weak, somewhat passive individual. I didn't think that she was bad as such, but I had a difficult time envisaging "Gussy" in a relationship with her. He's such a passive, easygoing individual himself that in his relationship with Karen, she's the one who makes things happen. You wonder how an Angus/Imogen relationship was even able to get to the point of conception!
Lyn says "And I'm sure that Koala loved all the scenes with Max being all vulnerable". Yup. I know that I couldn't resist a vulnerable Max. =) I was a bit startled when the "little Max Connors" started reading out the Pork Festival essay. They picked an actor who sounded almost exactly like Rupert with his snuffley intonation and mawkishly cute phrasing.
Carmen and Max are very funny together and the Oyster will indeed be filled with pearls of wisdom with the two of them as contributors.
I also liked the crying Laura scene with the sticky date pudding. I love sticky date pudding for one thing and I just found it all very affecting that she's still so distressed by Dan's departure. It makes me even more angry with him for just up and leaving her like that. At this point, the legions of Diver Dan fans are going to descend upon me and disembowel me for saying that I like Max better. Has Dan contacted Laura a single time since he left? Surely they have telephones, e-mails, carrier pigeons, bongo drums in the Galapagos Islands? Someone told me that they thought Dan might be making a guest appearance next week as the episode is called "Manna from Heaven". We shall see. (For sticky date pudding recipes, try this deja.com search. I don't vouch for any of the recipes as I haven't tried any of them!)
Let me make it clear - I'm not anti-Diver. I think Diver's a great character, too and his chemistry with Laura was wonderful, but he's gone now. I've moved on. Call me fickle if you like.
I loved the scene where everyone
comes rushing into the boatshed, interrupting a pensive and sad Max. Their arrival
chases away his Mood Indigo and he is another step towards belonging again.
Laura announces that she has won the competition with her lemon butter and the
huge smile on her face when she dabs Max's nose (large nose) is absolutely brilliant.
Does anyone else think that Sigrid Thornton looks much prettier now in her forties
than she did as Jessica in the Man from Snowy River? I should stop now
before I start saying that I would dab Max Connors' nose with lemon butter any
day of the week....... Here are some lemon butter recipes:
Basic
Herbed Lemon Butter
Lemon Butter Tarts
Disney
Lemon Butter
Do you realise that there are only SIX more episodes left in the season????????????
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