Something rich and strange...
updated 4 September 1999
written by Chris Hawkshank and Andrew Knight directed by Brendan Maher
Guest cast
Steve Vidler as The Ghost
Rachel Maza as Mrs Armistead
Ian Scott as Theo Lawrence
Matthew Green as Lionel
Lyn's Spiel
It's that experience that we've all healthily repressed at one time or another: the time you get a really bad school report, and you feel like you've totally disappointed your parents. This happens to both Craig and Rupert at the beginning of this episode: and for the rest of the hour, we get to see how Laura and Bob Jelly deal with their children as parents. Both are found wanting.
Responding to Rupert's terrible school report, Laura starts putting pressure on him: making him write tests, and hovering over him with an egg timer. Generally, we saw the return of the neurotic Laura from episode 1 with a vengeance. Yay! It's really healthy when a major character of a show has traits which are annoying. And it's also more realistic, as everyone has something irritating about them: whether it's paranoia, hypochondria, a tendency towards bitchiness, etc. In this episode, I think viewers all over the country were looking at how Laura related to her son, and screaming 'No! You'll scar him for life!' And as I'm a bit of a Rupert fan, I (unlike some) would find this to be a bad thing.
Gradually, Laura comes to realise that she's perhaps not being the best mother in the world. In a parent / teacher interview, it's made apparent that Laura can't think of anything Rupert likes doing, anything she can praise him for. Also apparent is that concerning Rupert's future prospects and talents, all Laura can talk about is her own experience. When the teacher first asks about Rupert's hobbies, Laura replies that she'd always hoped that Rupert would take up watercolours: she'd been really good at that. It's funny, sad, and revealing about her relationship with her son.
Craig Jelly has also failed a report, but interestingly Bob pressures him to drop out, rather than apply himself harder. Bob's plan is that as Craig is obviously stupid (of which point Craig is frequently informed throughout the episode), he's much better to try his hand at real estate 'because heaps of thick bastards make it in real estate - not that I'm saying you're thick'. Whatever. The eminently likeable Craig is obviously not of the same mould as Bob, as he botches fixing an auction, and finds the forcible eviction a little tough to handle.
Whilst all this is going on, strange stuff is happening in Pearl Bay. Just for a change. The tenant that Bob is trying to evict is an old eccentric guy who ends up in court for assaulting Graeme (how dare he! - not that I'm partial to the Sergeant, or anything . . .) When Laura hears the case, she refuses bail, as he gives no assurance that he'll behave, or that he won't try and return to the house. Straight after the decision, Angus criticises her in his usual 'directly-indirect' way: telling her that small things like forcing someone out of the house that they've lived in for years could send someone over the edge, 'but I'm sure you took that into account when you made that decision.' Frankly, I sided with Laura on this one: the eccentric Theo was creepy in court, and she didn't really have much of an option.
As it turns out, Angus's fears had some foundation: Theo tries to hang himself in the police cell. Max and Carmen are both intrigued: Carmen immediately assumes that there's a supernatural connection, whilst Max looks for a more prosaic explanation. There's an incredibly powerful scene where the two viewpoints collide. In the boathouse, Carmen concedes defeat that she won't find the ghost. Max makes some flippant joke about 'why would anyone want to talk to the dead anyway.' Carmen stares at him, then says 'sometimes I hate you.' She's absolutely serious, and her expression freezes the scene. Max is startled, and asks why she cares so much. Carmen asks: 'What about Ileana?' Max's turn to look hardened. 'And what about my baby?' she continues, 'I'd hate to think that little body in a box was all there was.' Max looks at her, then quietly concedes, 'yes, there are some people it would be good to hear from.' I thought this scene was really good: it illustrated how different these two are, but also showed Max's desire not to hurt Carmen, who I think he has grown quite affectionate towards.
Max then talks to Theo, and finds out some bizarre information about Jim Jelly, a relative of Bob's who was Theo's business partner. Jim went overseas suddenly, leaving only a trail of postcards behind him. Problem is, that once Max starts looking at the postcards, he realises that they're all out of date, and Carmen notes the postmarks are smudged. Max then goes to check out the house. Craig is there, trying to draw a floor plan, but the measurements of the walls just don't add up. As the audience figured out the first time Craig looked puzzled with a tape-measure, there's a hidden compartment in one of the walls. In my favourite scene of the episode, it's Max who after Craig figures out which wall of the house to cave in, tells Craig that he's a genius. Craig stops, and looks at him: it's only too obvious that such an expression of praise is utterly alien to his experience. 'Thanks', he says simply, then takes the hammer and smashes the wall. Meanwhile I swearing at Bob for failing to do the same.
In the wall, they find Jim Jelly's skeleton. Seems that he was about to run off with all the investor's money. Jim and Theo had a fight, there was a shove, Jim Jelly fell and hit the faulty wiring. It was quite poignant: as Theo reflects; 'one punch, and my life was gone'. All his weird behaviour starts to make sense, as he's just been consumed with guilt over the years.
This plot, another court case Laura's trying, and the stories involving Rupert and Craig all coalesce into 'right place, right time' dialogue. The idea being that it all boils down to opportunities, praise, the right encouragement: and how different your life is if you receive it, or if you don't. Theo was in the wrong place. Although I thought his 'faulty wiring' story was a bit questionable, if it's true, it is quite sad: anger at betrayal and an impulsive shove essentially destroyed him The flip side of this was William: a kid we see in a few scenes, who is in court over stealing a bicycle. Sergeant Grey argues that he should be given a custodial sentence, but instead Laura decides to help him out, delving into court funds to buy him a bicycle. Angus, turns to her afterwards and says approvingly: 'Good one. Right place, right time'. What Laura did is turn a moment which could have been a downward slide, into a possibility of redemption.
How does this relate to Craig and Rupert? My interpretation of this episode is that both these characters because of the pressure from their parents, were at crucial moments. Craig was about to be forced into the real estate industry, Rupert was about to be convinced that he had no self-worth whatsoever. In this sense, it was a question of choices, because small things that either of them did could have tipped their path either way.
The best part about how this episode was handled, is that although the smaller plots involving new characters were neatly resolved (we found the body in the wall, and the kid got off from prison), the more long-term relationships were left hanging. Bob never praised Craig, and Craig is still left with the uphill struggle of asserting what he wants to do against Bob's draconian pronouncements. Likewise, although Laura at least realises how she's pressuring Rupert, none of this has any conclusion. She tells him she'll give him a trip to 'Wet 'n' Wild' if he gets above 50%, but this isn't praise of any accomplishment, it's just bribery. There's no progress yet from Laura's reflection that she's bad at giving praise, or that she enforces her standards on others. And we shouldn't see progress: like any family, this is a long term relationship which will take years to sort itself out. I think that in future episodes, we'll see further explorations of how Laura can relate to her son, whose personality and interests are so different to her own.
In cute resolutions, it turns out that it's the two girls (Miranda and Jules Jelly) who have it all worked out. Miranda wants to be an archeologist, but mentions to Craig that she'll never tell her mother that, because Laura wants her to join a profession and be a lawyer, or a doctor. Instead, whenever Laura raises the topic ('with these marks Miranda, you could do anything' - followed by a meaningful glare in Rupert's direction), Miranda just shrugs, and says she wants to travel. Maybe hang out in India for a while. Laura's eyes start showing a glazed panic, and after Miranda grudgingly throws out a few pointers ('I don't know Mum; I like history, I like to travel . . . but there's nothing that really brings that together'), Laura has a brainwave. Miranda should be an archeologist! Brilliantly non-committal, Miranda replies 'I don't know if that's really me', but promises to think about it. And all across Australia, teenagers stare intently at the TV thinking, 'that's brilliant! That's how I'll get out of studying law . . .'
The only silly and annoying part of this episode, which was also very unexplained, was the ghost that was wandering around the old house chatting with Craig. I'm not sure if they cut out a bit of dialogue between Craig and the ghost, but it was all a bit strange. If I'm not mistaken, the idea was that the apparition was not Craig's uncle at all, it was a possible future Craig (a kind of ghost of Christmases to come). But if this is the case, why the link with the body? Theo seemed to think he was getting haunted by the dead guy, so was Craig just wrong? But why would the ghost of Craig's uncle pretend to be a future Craig? Just in case you're not getting my drift, I was a little confused by this one.
Amazing: I've managed to conclude this summary without even talking about the funniest running joke which actually took up quite a lot of episode time: namely, Max trying to get Laura's approval on the first line of his novel. Did anyone else think Colonel Mendides was just a silly name? Anyway, lots of Max / Laura moments: when she avoided the question about whether the line was good, he throws out her tea, she disparages his second draft, he questions her intelligence. . . . great stuff! My favourite moment was the scene when Laura stalks into the boathouse with Max's third? draft, and informs him that there's absolutely no difference from the second. Whilst he tries to tell her that there's a subtle shift in emphasis (and he changed Guatamala to Colombia to make it more accessible), Carmen just sits back and enjoys the show. The relationship between these two is just fantastic! Yes, Koala, Max is a spunk. And it seems as the episodes progress, he's getting better at keeping the top half of his wetsuit on . . .
A final note: although it's been on the wall for a while, this was the first episode that the pool trophy on the wall of the boathouse was really noticeable. Remember, the competition from 'The Official Story'? Anyway, the bizarre looking placard on Max's wall is actually the pool trophy with a picture of Rupert and Laura, who beat the Jellys back in season 1, and thus avoided running around town in their underwear. A quibble: if it's an annual tournament, they really should have had another round at some point, which even if it didn't feature in an episode, would have meant a change of photo. Maybe Meredith just forgot. For once.
© 1999 Lyn
Koala's Spiel:
Another interesting episode of SeaChange. I like the way that the episodes mix it up - each episode has a different feel and vibe to it. Tonight's wasn't emotionally heavy, laden with innuendo or hysterically funny - it was thought-provoking without being didactic.
It was about relationships, expectations:
Craig and Bob
Laura and Rupert
Max and Laura
Max and Carmen
Laura and Miranda
Miranda and Craig
Laura and Angus.
In an indirect way, there was also an "Angus / Karen" insight.
The episode started with Max walking from the waters towards Laura who is sitting on the beach, sitting tea and apparently waiting for him. In the background is Archie Roach's adorable song "Love in the morning" - "when I see you, when I see you in the morning light, then I know everything will be all right".
There's a very comfortable familiarity about the scene as if it has become a regular occurence that Laura sits on the beach holding a cup of tea while waiting for Max as he swims. They even have beach towels on the sand, side by side. Laura hands Max a cup of tea and listens as he recites the first line from his book.
"Colonel Mendides was alive and well and and living in honourable exile in Santiago when they buried his remains in a shallow grave in a mosquito infested swamp in Guatemala."
Instead of providing him with the feedback he is seeking, Laura starts talking about how wonderful it must be to write a book, to be able to express one's feelings - anything except the response he is waiting for. He wants her to tell him that it intrigues her, that it whets her appetite. Finally, Laura says it might do that if she read some more. Max scowls and demands,"What did you stew this tea with?" Aware that she has offended him, she suggests,"Perhaps if I read everything you've written so far". "That is everything I've written so far," he tells her. Annoyed and offended, he tosses the tea aside and storms back into the water. Cue opening credits.
The "not such great expectations" are introduced as Bob and Craig walk along the shoreline together, both in bright red blazers. Craig has failed his maths exam and Bob is convinced that his son is an idiot and therefore destined to become a real estate agent. Craig protests that he only failed one maths exam, and attempts to tell his father something about what was said by his career adviser. Even though he keeps saying that it's not that he thinks Craig is thick.... but it's clear that he does. I felt quite sorry for Craig in this episode. It can't be easy being the son of Bob Jelly. It's clear that Craig has more of his mother's traits than Bob's. To do Bob credit though, Bob does believe in the wonderfulness of real estate - imbuing himself with a deity-like evangelical fervour. He was inspired by his cousin Jim Jelly, who was also a real estate agent and left Pearl Bay years ago to make his fortune in property overseas.
In an interesting, if disturbingly similar parallel, Laura is startled that Rupert is getting D's in school. Like Bob, even though she assures Rupert that it's not that she thinks he's stupid, she's quite concerned about his grades. "You're about this far from the bottom". Rupert shrugs it off with insouciant carelessness, claiming that if he gets into marketing, he'll make it big before he's twenty five. Although we have never even considered comparing the insensitive Bob Jelly with the neurotic but fundamentally caring Laura Gibson, this latest developments highlights the similarity in an alarming fashion.
As Laura goes out to the car, Max comes running up the hill looking somewhat scruffy and dishevelled to tell Laura that his publisher thought that the opening was stunning. Max appears to feel triumphant and hands her a new version of his novel's opening.
A young boy named William is appearing before Laura, charged with the theft of a bicycle. He appears to be a troubled young boy, down-trodden by life and without any friends or family to speak up on his behalf. A somewhat sullen young boy, we learn that he is a problem child at school and that the principal of the high school believed that William stole the bicyle out of revenge for being expelled. A report indicates that William has a serious learning disorder. One interesting factor is that William has almost sole care of his little half-sister - indicating that there is more beneath the surface than is immediately obvious.
Craig is finding his path to real estate enlightenment somewhat difficult. Dummy bids and scamming customers is difficult for him and he is somewhat inept at helping Bob to manipulate the progress of an auction. In contrast to the three non-achievers, Miranda is getting excellent grades and manipulating Laura in an almost Machiavellian fashion. By making Laura think that she has no plans and intends to be footloose and fancy-free, Miranda propels Laura towards what she wants, which is to be an archaeologist.
Bob and Craig are accompanied by Sergeant Grey as they head out towards Theo Lawrence's house in an attempt to evict the strange, hermit-like man. Craig is equally uncomfortable with forcible evictions as he is with dummy auction bids. And as he should be. As someone who is about to be tossed out by my landlord so that he can sell my unit, I can definitely sympathise with Craig's views about the distastefulness of evictions! Theo attacks Sergeant Grey and we next see him before Laura in the courtroom, a broken, strange man who is a mere shell of his former self. Laura's decision to hold Theo in custody arouses Angus' disapproval and he says a little unfairly: "What's the point of having you here if you're just applying the law - any fool can do that". While it's the sort of statement to make law students and lawyers chuckle at its wittiness, there's a little more involved. As any law student or lawyer will tell you, it can be difficult to apply the law to the facts. I think what Angus meant to say was that, upon finding out what the applicable law is, any fool can blindly apply the law. The difficulty comes with thinking about the consequences of such an application and the story behind any set of facts.
Laura is extremely troubled by Rupert's bad grades. His teacher is more philosophical about it and it is clear as the discussion proceeds that Laura never praises Rupert and in fact does not focus on any of Rupert's more positive qualities. Laura talks about herself, her aspirations, her likes and dislikes and emerges as a thoroughly self-absorbed parent who projects her own personality onto that of her son. It's a very Laura Gibson-esque moment and although it's not immediately apparent that she has realised this, later in the episode Laura overcomes this shortcoming.
In a somewhat spooky scene, Sergeant Grey is at the station on his own and he hears a sound. I immediately expected a ghost or Theo to come leaping out to strangle Lyn's favourite policeman, but instead, Theo attempts to hang himself and is rescued just in time. Laura feels awful, and this is exacerbated by Angus' somewhat unfair, reproachful looks at her.
Carmen's interpretation of Theo's situation for the purpose of writing an article for the Pearl Bay Oyster is a supernatural one. Max's is more grounded in reality. He wants to know why someone who had everything going for him becomes the shattered Theo. Lyn has already described the very telling dialogue which takes place between Carmen and Max. You receive the impression that Carmen is genuinely distressed and upset by Max's seeming callousness, and her pain has reached Max behind his wall of bitter and twisted cynicism. It's a great SeaChange moment. Again, I think these two have a great dynamic going between them.
Max the sleuthing newshound does some investigative journalism. Lyn's described it above so I won't repeat it - suffice to say, the combined team of Craig Jelly and Max Connors manage to uncover one of Pearl Bay's most gruesome secrets. Inside the wall of Theo's house is the skeleteon of Jim Jelly. Not only was he not the saintly, brilliant real estate agent who was Bob Jelly's inspiration, he was a two-timing, double-crossing, scammy crook who was about to run off with all the money. cheated out of investors, leaving Theo to take the fall.
Just before the moment of discovery though, Max tells Craig he's a genius. With Max you never can tell if he's joking or not, but I think he was serious. When Max entered the house, intent on snooping around, Craig tells him that he can't even get a simple thing right ie drawing up the floorplan. Despite being caught up on his investigations, Max pauses and in typical Max fashion doesn't say anything sympathetic: "there's something to be said about perseverence". Nonetheless, flip remark aside, the pause and the somewhat searching look he gives Craig indicates a certain sympathy for the brow-beaten young man with the heart of gold.
Laura and Angus walk through the courthouse opening windows and getting the courthouse ready. They discuss Theo's unfortunate situation, one of Angus' acquaintances who was in the right place at the right time. Laura takes this comment to heart and is able to apply it immediately to young William. When she discovers that he stole the bike in order to take on a paper round job to earn money, she decides to do more than blindly apply the law and uses court funds to buy him a bicycle. Angus obviously approvse and Sergeant Grey despite his protestations gives a wry smile as if to acknowledge that what Laura has done is the best thing for all concerned. The lawyer (whom we have seen before) was also showed as being sympathetic to William's cause which I thought was nice. I received the impression that he was genuinely concerned about his young client's plight.
The revelation that Jim Jelly was a crook, lets Craig Jelly off the hook to some extent and he follows Miranda's advice and informs his father that he wants to become a buddhist monk (no doubt setting him up to be more amendable when he announces he wants o becoem a builder). As pointed out by Lyn, Laura hasn't really come to terms with how to deal with Rupert. Nonetheless, at least she has at least reached a point when she acknowledges her shortcoming.
I really liked the conversation between Meredith and Laura in which Laura looks absolutely baffled as she describes how Max keeps coming to her with the first line from his book, reminding her of how the cat brings dead birds to her. It's such a cute image.
In a scene reminiscent to the first season, Laura seeks out the occupant of the boatshed for an introspective discussion. It's not quite the same though. Laura's chats with Diver, always seemed so cosy and laid back. Max and Laura silences always seem to have a lot of unspoken dialogue flying around, especially when they just look at each other. Both of them have such expressive, speaking eyes. Max coaxes Laura into having a coffee (something which he always seems to be doing). I think this is the fourth time he has tried to persuade her to have coffee with him. I won't read too much into this.
Laura admits to Max that she has difficulty giving praise. She tells him that she has problems even telling her own son that he's doing well and while not apologising, is explaining to him why perhaps she hasn't been able to give him the sort of feedback he wants. Max in his own revelation, tells her that the novel was merely his and Elena's way of ensuring that he had something to do after she was gone. He tells Laura that Elena used to give him praise even though it was blatantly obvious that she couldn't see what he was writing.
I'm glad that Lyn is acknowledging that Max is a spunk. *grin* The last Max and Laura scene where he emerges from the water is rather beautiful as she sits there with furrowed brow, poring over what appears to be a whole chapter rather than just a first line. She wordlessly hands him a cup of tea and continues to read and gives him restrained praise, but it's praise nonetheless. As she hands him his chapter back and walks back to the house, he mumbles to himself about Colonel Mendidies, a woman with soft grey eyes and "wondering". It was very poignant and very lovely. Laura's eyes aren't grey though - they're a rather extraordinary amber/green but perhaps he was taking poetic licence.
Did anyone else observe the relationship between Trevor and Kevin? When Trevor announces that he wants to become a parapsychologist, or run a caravan park, Kevin didn't even bat an eyelash - at either announcement. There was no questioning or doubt. He simply asks how one goes about becoming a parapsychologist. You can be sure that whatever vocation Trevor seeks, his father will be behind him 100 percent.
In another aside, in "Head for Water", Max's swimming is characterised as a self-destructive, almost scary tendancy to swim out far from shore. This was highlighted by the eerie lyrics of the Felt song. In this episode, I receive the distinct impression that with Laura sitting on the shore, Max is swimming out to return to the woman sitting on the shore with the badly stewed tea and the minimalist praise. However you want to describe it, Laura has become his anchor/shelter from the store/reason to return and Max is no longer adrift. He even has happy music now (Archie Roach) to accompany his watery forays. =)
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