Loveday Writing

When Ged’s wife, Robyn, takes them to their home after they land, Wayne calls Eliza asking her if she and Pete can take his patient as the plane they were in hit a kangaroo on descent and ruptured the brake line. She agrees.

When Eliza examines Ged, she discovers that he has bleeding in his abdomen, so they have to take him to hospital. Eliza calls Wayne to let him know that because they have to take Ged to hospital, she can’t take his patient. Robyn tries to go with Ged, but he convinces her to stay behind to continue the work on their farm.

Ged has a cardiac arrest onboard, which leads to Eliza and Pete performing CPR on him for several minutes. They eventually have to intubate him as Mira descends into a dust storm. While they successfully manage to revive him, he crashes again when Mira is finishing descending. When they land, Leonie tells Pete that there’s no chance of an ambulance, and Eliza points out that their multiple attempts over the last 43 minutes haven’t worked, Pete stops his CPR efforts and Eliza declares Ged dead.

When Eliza goes to call Robyn to inform her, Pete stops her, saying that as he’s known them for years, the news should come from him. When he does call her, he gets her voicemail. Eliza then goes outside to call Henry, who spent the day in bed and was unaware of the dust storm until he woke up and found the flat covered in dust. Due to the dust storm, Eliza is immediately able to pick up on his lie, and Henry lashes out at her by stating she gets to do what she wants and only thinks of herself.

Robyn calls Pete back and he gives her the news. Later, Pete and Eliza clean Ged up before Robyn arrives to see him. When she sees Ged, she tells them that she tried to convince him to take further action on his bowel cancer symptoms, and breaks down.

When Pete returns home and finds out that Taylor is still at Wyama and they argue over her staying there, he tells her that Nate was insolvent in anger. Meanwhile, Eliza goes home and Henry tells her that he wants to go back to the UK and live with his dad.

Wayne and Matty – The focus on their subplot wasn’t as strong. The plane they were in hit a kangaroo on descent, which ruptured the brake line. Wayne and Matty leave the plane and go to treat their patient, Ryan, a teenage footy player, has broken his foot, which has become ischemic.

Wayne puts the broken bone back into place, which restores the blood supply back to his foot. However as Graham is waiting on Blake, an engineer, to repair the brake line, Wayne and Matty drive Ryan to the hospital in Broken Hill, which is two hours away. On the way there, Blake drives by them, which makes Wayne question whether he made the right choice by choosing to drive, instead of waiting for the brake line to be repaired.

When Wayne sees the dust storm in the distance, he has to pull over. When Ryan starts to have an asthma attack, Wayne has to get Ryan’s bag, which has his puffer in it, out of the back, which forces him out in the storm. Wayne successfully manages to get his puffer and Ryan gets through his attack.

Once the dust storm passes, Wayne and Matty take Ryan to the hospital. Wayne tells Matty that Ryan will have surgery and will eventually make a full recovery.

Taylor and Darren – The episode kicks off with Taylor revealing to Pete while they’re at Wyama that she plans to fulfill Rhiannon’s plans to do the shearers’ quarters up so it can be rented out for camps and to outback tourists, when she moves out there full-time next year. Pete asks Taylor if she would prefer going to uni or backpacking when she finishes school and she says no, however when he gets to work, it’s revealed when he talks to Mira that he only asked Taylor that question as Nate was insolvent.

Later, Darren comes out to see Taylor as she has been ignoring his messages. Taylor drives off but Darren ends up going after her. When they catch up to each other, the dust storm starts to approach them, and Taylor tells Darren to get into her ute. While they are sitting in the ute, waiting for the storm to pass, Taylor admits that she has been avoiding him as she was embarrassed over the fact that she kissed him and he didn’t kiss her back. Darren tells her that he didn’t want to take advantage of her, as she’s grieving. Taylor admits that she likes him and he kisses her.

At the end of the episode, her and Darren are hanging out at Wyama. When Pete calls her and wants her to come back to his place and she refuses, Pete tells her in anger that Nate was insolvent and Wyama actually belongs to the bank, not her.

Overall I felt that this was a weak episode. I felt that the dust storm was only added for shock value, especially as Ged’s cause of death was unrelated and it effectively only temporarily stopped everyone in their tracks. While it was realistic to the geographic location of the show, I felt that it didn’t really add anything to the episode – the subplots would have been just as compelling without it. Other than Taylor and Darren’s relationship progressing, I felt that there was no other character development in this episode.

Hopefully the next episode will improve, especially as this one marked the halfway point of the season.

Stray Observations:

Running gag: Matty trying to discuss astrology with Wayne and then their patient, Ryan.

-According to Taylor, Wyama has been in the family for 130 years.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Crook will tell you a lot about a fella. It’s a lot better than dead but heaps worse than fine.” (Pete to Eliza when their patient is described as crook and Eliza doesn’t understand what the word ‘crook’ means.)