Loveday Writing

When she goes to work, Grace delivers another baby and Max expresses his desire to deliver his first baby at the Birthing Centre. Then Max and Grace attend to their client, Marnie. Marnie is an anxious mother who is determined to stick with her drug-free birth plan, however when she develops complications, Grace goes to Diane to ostensibly get advice on how to deal with the complications only to tell her about Sophia’s adoption plans (which I’ll get to).

While Marnie is getting an epidural by Diane, Grace spots Marnie’s partner, Kate, watching from outside. When Kate spots Grace looking at her, she tries to leave. When Grace catches up to her, Kate reveals to her that she and Marnie have had miscarriages and this baby is the first to get to full-term, and she is afraid of the outcome. To try and convince her to be in the room for Marnie, Grace reveals to her that she also had a miscarriage, losing her little boy, Henry, at 33 weeks, however Kate drives off anyway.

Grace manages to deliver Marnie’s baby, with Diane’s and Max’s assistance and Kate walking into the room to be there for Marnie in the final minutes. The baby is born healthy without additional complications.

Meanwhile, Sophia sees Sasha to get advice on expressing milk as she was told it’s best not to breastfeed, Sasha asks her who told her that, however Sophia doesn’t tell her. Sophia’s father, Kirk (Alex Dimitriades) arrives, and she reveals to him and Grace that she is planning on putting the baby up for adoption and has been speaking with a social worker to arrange it, but it can’t be finalised for another six weeks.

Later when Sophia tries to use the breast pump to express, she freaks out and leaves. Sasha sees her leave and tries to get her to stay at the Birthing Centre to no avail. While she is gone, Kirk is trying to comfort the baby and he argues with Grace about Sophia staying with her. Grace calls Jim to ask him to check the house to see if Sophia is there but she isn’t, and his pain on Henry’s loss is touched on when Grace asks for his advice on comforting Marnie during the birth and when he sees the crib in the bedroom and is stopped in his tracks.

Later, Kirk yells at Sasha for not giving him information on the emergency contact Sophia listed when she came to the Birthing Centre, and for not telling him about Sophia giving birth two days earlier. When Max witnesses this, he convinces Kirk to come inside for a drink and they talk. Kirk reveals he dropped the ball with Sophia and he asks Max if he has any kids, Max reveals that he has a seven-year-old boy.

When the day comes to an end and Sophia hasn’t returned, Grace offers to take care of the baby as the house is set up for a baby. Kirk initially refuses, until Grace tells him it will only be until Sophia returns. They swap numbers so they can contact each other. When Grace gets home, she finds Sophia waiting for her, where she tells her she found expressing milk and Kirk showing up overwhelming and needed time to herself. Grace tells Sophia that her reasons for giving her up for adoption were complex and it may take time to explain, and that she hopes Sophia will stick around, so she can explain. Sophia agrees to do so and tells her that she has chosen a name for the baby – Eady, which was her adopted mother’s middle name.

The episode ends with Grace calling Kirk to let him know that Sophia is at her house. Kirk tells Grace that they have six weeks to change Sophia’s mind about putting Eady up for adoption. While Grace doesn’t make it clear if she fully agrees with Kirk’s plan, she doesn’t back out either.

Overall I felt this was a solid second episode, we are introduced to Sophia’s adopted father, Kirk, who alternated between being a caring, gentle and slightly bewildered father and new grandfather, to a man with a short fuse. I don’t think his character is necessarily an abusive or bad man, but I did find myself questioning whether he is someone that operates a little hot-and-cold, especially when he was yelling at Sasha and his efforts to control Sophia, or if he is a good guy who is just overwhelmed at the moment. He is also clearly being set up as a love interest for Grace, so it will be interesting to see how he plays out as a character, as well as how his relationship with Grace develops, especially as they are planning to have Sophia change her mind about the adoption.

We also got subtle moments of character development with the reveal that Grace and Jim lost their unborn son, which isn’t surprising as there was a crib in their old house still assembled, and that Jim is expecting a baby with his current wife, Bonnie. It will be interesting to see how the loss of Henry will affect him in his approach to fatherhood with Bonnie. We also see Diane have drinks with another doctor, Dr. Sebastian, clearly an old flame and a character written to be her love interest. The most interesting character development of all was the strained relationship between Grace and Diane, which was shown with their argument in the bathroom, where Diane reveals that Grace didn’t tell her she was pregnant with Sophia until late in the pregnancy and she asks Grace why she gave Sophia up. Grace says she doesn’t know but Diane says she does, however Grace doesn’t reveal her reasons why to her.

On smaller notes, it was also revealed that Max has a son and partner, which surprised me a little as I thought that he might have been written as a love interest for either Sasha or Grace. It was also revealed that the man Laney is having an affair, Paul, with is one of the Hospital’s board members.

With this season consisting of eight episodes, this episode being the second one, and with Kirk and Grace having six weeks to change Sophia’s mind about the adoption, it will be interesting to see how the timeline is played out in the remaining episodes. Will the timeline of each episode be one week? I’d say it’s likely considering that only two days passed in the timeline between the pilot and this episode. With that in mind and the small but important character development we saw in this episode, I think this show, in terms of story arc and character progression, will be a slow burn rather than a wild fire.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Pizza guys deliver, midwives birth.” (Grace to Max)
• “There’s nothing expressed about expressing milk.” (Sasha to Sophia about expressing milk)
• “I want to punch you in the face.” “Ok, where, right here? I reckon you’ve got a mean hook on ya.” (Marnie-Max while Marnie is having a contraction)
• “I have something to share…I decided on a name.” “I was warming to It, but go on let’s hear it.” (Sophia-Grace on the baby’s name)