Loveday Writing

Picking up from where we were left off at the end of last week’s episode, Easton wanders around in the dark, Jim’s rifle in hand, and finds a group of campers. While one of the campers, whose name is later revealed to be Wood Duck, initially mistakes Easton for a homeless man, they eventually realise who he is. Easton ends up drinking mead and ingesting magic mushrooms with the group, which leads to him going on a spiritual journey of sorts.

While he and Wood Duck hitchhike their way to a servo as Wood Duck tells Easton he needs food and sugar to avoid a crash from the mushrooms, Easton begins his psychedelic spiritual journey, especially as Wood Duck points out that his ego has been stripped away and needs to face his pain. This journey leads to him having abstract flashbacks of Margot, Diana, and June’s opening night, but it eventually leads to flashbacks of his childhood when he and Denise were kids and camped with Jim. Easton used to cook a rabbit stew, adding Jim’s home-brewed beer as a secret ingredient.

After Wood Duck mysteriously disappears, Easton wakes up by the fire pit with Jim sitting nearby. How Easton made his way back to the fire pit is never explained but he gets up and sets out to make things right with everyone as he has had some sort of epiphany. He then hears women singing out “1,2,3” and a mattress is thrown on him, before fading to black.

We then switch to Denise and Diana bed shopping after Denise got rid of Diana’s old bed when she converted Diana’s bedroom into her office. While they are shopping, the conflict between them comes to a head as Denise continues to push Diana to go to uni, Diana calls Denise out on her lack of faith and support in her, and Denise calls Diana selfish for dragging up her painful past by using the family home for the restaurant. Denise and Diana eventually reconcile on a bunk bed (much to the furniture store employee, Max’s, chagrin), when Diana tearfully claims she is selfish just like Easton and Denise reassures her she isn’t, as Easton doesn’t have the same caring nature that she does.

When Denise and Diana return home, eventually having bought a bed, they decide to throw Diana’s old mattress out of the window, which leads to the reveal that Easton had made his way to Denise’s house and wasn’t hallucinating the mattress flying at him. While Easton doesn’t apologise to them, he does tell them that they have every right to be angry at him and invites them to hit him (Diana does, Denise doesn’t), and asks them to come to the family home as he has something to show them.

When Diana and Denise arrive, they find that Easton has done up the fire pit into a sitting area and is cooking the stew that he cooked as a child. When Easton gives Denise and Diana Jim’s home-brewed beer to drink, and Diana asks why it has an unusual taste, Jim reveals that he brews his beers with wild garlic, which is why it goes well with the stew. Easton proposes to Diana that the restaurant incorporate the whole family property and cooking, starting with the fire pit, which was essentially what Diana proposed in the pilot. When Diana calls him out for not apologising to her, they get into a fight, with the episode ending with Jim collapsing off his chair and dying.

Overall I felt this was the weakest episode of the series so far. While the story arc has generally been fast paced with the pilot ending on Easton’s decision to open the restaurant in a month, the second episode kicking off with promo photos, the third episode focusing on the set up of the restaurant space and menu, and the previous episode focusing on the opening night, this episode has the pace of the series slow down completely.

While the slower pace of this episode allowed for crucial character development, specifically with Easton embracing his cooking roots, and Denise and Diana finally understanding each other, considering the fast pace of the previous episodes I felt the pace of this one was too slow. While the character development was solid, it would have been better if this development happened over the course of the season as opposed to being thrown into not just one episode, but the penultimate episode of the season.

While it is logical that Easton would only learn from his experience by getting depressed, then getting high and subsequently having the epiphany he needed, I felt this was a cliché that didn’t need to take up half the episode.

I honestly didn’t see Jim’s sudden death coming, that being said it will most likely be the catalyst to force Denise and Easton to resolve their issues and relationship. It will also be interesting to see how and where the restaurant will be impacted with his passing.

I’m looking forward to seeing and reviewing next week’s finale.

Stray Observations:

-Brett, Kwame and Nayani didn’t appear in this episode.

-Zhao and Margot appear in this episode via Easton’s hallucinations but not in person.

-Apparently the square root of 5,000 fuckwits is 0678.

-Wood Duck and some of the campers are mathematicians.

-According to Jim, Easton was babbling about ducks whilst he was sleeping off his high by the fire pit.

-Denise was 11 when Easton left the family to learn how to cook.

-Denise and Easton slept in bunk beds when they were growing up.

-It’s revealed that Diana’s father was a violent man who held Denise against a wall and threatened to kill her. When Denise asks Diana what dish she would make reflecting their past, she tells her she would make a Violent Crumble – a wall of Violet Crumble and the diners would have to punch it and eat it.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Last night I did something terrible, something…something unforgivable.” “What now?” “I took part in a drum circle.” (Easton to Jim)
• “What do you think of this one?” “I think if I was a 19^th century Parisian whore, it would be perfect.” (Denise-Diana on a 19^th century-style bed in a furniture store)
• “Oh, you’re on his team now, are you dad?” “Well, he’s still a dickhead.” (Denise-Jim)
• “Tomorrow night, Jim can get a roo or whatever the fuck he can shoot without getting arrested.” (Easton to Denise and Diana on his new menu plans)
• “What’s with the mattress?” “What’s with the blood?” “Oh it’s not mine.” “Shame.” (Easton-Denise-Diana)
• “Would you like a stick or are you going to use your hand?” (Diana to Denise on slapping Easton)
• “You’re not the only culinary genius around here, you prick!” (Jim to Easton when he reveals that he brews his beers with wild garlic)