Loveday Writing

As their plane is forced to land on a runway with no lights,  Eliza and Matty are racing against the clock to treat their patient and bring him back to the plane by nightfall. There are also no 4WDs or utes to get them to their patient, so their patient’s uncles, Mikey and “Ferret”, have to take them with their quad bikes.

As Eliza treats their patient, “Bomber”, who has a fractured pelvis, Matty sees a bunch of rifles stacked against a tree. Ferret tells him that they are culling pigs and when Mikey makes a remark about castrating the pigs, Matty jokingly tells Mikey that he reminds him of his ex-boyfriend. While it seems like Mikey and Ferret may be the type of stereotypical alpha males that may be homophobic, Mikey tells Matty that he actually voted in favour of same sex marriage. The situation escalates to violence when Mikey insults Eliza when she stands up to him, borderline threatening to shoot her, and Ferret punches him. Mikey and Ferret fight each other, with Mikey getting a knife out. The situation comes to a head when Ferret pushes Mikey and he hits his head on a rock, Ferret is stabbed with the knife, and Matty’s arm is cut when he tries to intervene.

Eliza and Matty get Bomber, Ferret and Mikey on the plane in the nick of time, with Eliza driving a quad bike back with their patient, Matty driving another quad bike with Mikey on board, and Ferret driving himself as his injury wasn’t as serious as they thought. Ferret tells Matty he’s real name is Andrew and that he’s actually not into hunting, he only does it for the peace and quiet as he can’t kayak down the river like he used to, due to the drought. They end up making conversation on the plane ride back to base.

Towards the end of the episode, Eliza goes to the pub with Graham and Leonie, after they invite her to a game of two-up, knowing she is sad over Henry’s departure. Eliza later gets a text from Ed, letting her know that Henry arrived in London safely.

Overall I enjoyed seeing Eliza and Matty paired off, and the way that they handled the situation they found themselves in. I also enjoyed seeing the conversation take place between Matty and Ferret, it will be interesting to see if Ferret makes another appearance in future episodes.

Wayne and Timmy – Wayne’s older brother, Timmy, makes his first onscreen appearance after being mentioned in previous episodes. Darren is playing in a local rugby game, where he is tackled by an opposing player, and Timmy, the team coach, calls out a referee for not penalising the opposing player. Timmy starts arguing with the referee, only to collapse.

When Wayne comes to treat him, he tells him he needs to get a proper check up in hospital. When Timmy is reluctant to go on the plane and says he’s fine, Darren tells him he isn’t and asks him nicely to get on the plane. When Wayne tells Timmy that Darren will get hit by a car or kangaroo because he rides out three times a week to see him, Timmy tells him that he’s not the only person he rides out to see, revealing Darren and Taylor’s relationship to both Wayne and Ben.

After Timmy goes off to hospital, Leonie asks to see Wayne. Leonie tells him that the Chief at Melbourne Hospital called for a reference check. Wayne tells her that when Eliza got the Senior Medical Officer role, he “hate applied” to other jobs but he put his resentment towards Eliza behind him. Leonie tells him that he is irreplaceable and doesn’t want him to go, however she will do what is best for him and won’t stand in his way if he does want to leave RFDS. Later when Darren returns home, Wayne tells him to invite Taylor over for dinner.

Later, Timmy discharges himself from hospital so Wayne drives to Menindee, where Timmy lives, to try and convince him to go back. Wayne finds him by the river and tells him that he’s in stage three renal failure and that if he doesn’t get treatment, he’ll die. When they go to the pub for lunch, Timmy admits that he’s reluctant to be treated as it would mean spending most of his time on dialysis, like their father did, implying that the problem is possibly genetic. Timmy also calls Wayne out for not following his career ambitions and tells Wayne to stop wasting his time trying to help him. Later when Darren asks Wayne where Timmy is, Wayne tells him he went home, presumably refusing to be treated.

In the final moments of the episode, Wayne tells Mira that the reference request from Melbourne Hospital became a job offer, which he plans on accepting.

Overall, I enjoyed this subplot as we finally see Timmy onscreen. Timmy is a likable and relatable character brilliantly portrayed by Lee Willis-Ardler, and was given fantastic one liners by the writers. Timmy also provides another insight into Wayne’s character.

Mira – In previous episodes, we’d only see Mira as the pilot and briefly in scenes outside of work, this episode is the first in which Mira truly shines, ironically outside of the plane.

Whilst she is driving on the highway in an RFDS vehicle, Mira comes across a flipped car on the side of the road. She pulls over and finds the male driver, Josh, deceased. As she is turning the car’s ignition off to prevent it from going up in flames, she hears a woman’s voice calling for help. She finds a female passenger, Carly, trapped. Mira tries to get a phone signal but can’t and struggles to figure out what to do. When she sees a ute in the distance, she uses a flare to get it to stop. The woman driving the ute, Ursula, has a UHF radio, which Mira uses to get an ambulance.

In the meantime, Mira and Ursula sit with Carly to comfort and talk to her but don’t tell her Josh has died. Carly heartbreakingly tells them that she and Josh were making wedding plans, when Carly asks them if they are married, Ursula tells her that she is widowed and Mira tells her about how she and Wayne met on her first day, and when she fell in love with him. Carly passes away just as the ambulance arrives.

When Mira meets Wayne at the pub in the episode’s final moments, she wants to talk him about their relationship, however she lets him talk first and he tells her about his job offer. Wanting him to be happy and knowing how much he wants to expand his career, Mira doesn’t say what she wants to say, instead making the excuse of needing the bathroom to get off the pub’s balcony, breaking down on pub’s stairs.

Overall I felt this was the best subplot of the episode as the spotlight was put on a non-medical character. Even though she’s a pilot and not a doctor, as she is working for the RFDS, I would expect Mira to at least have some basic First Aid training under her belt, so she was able to provide some help to Carly. However I feel Mira’s hopelessness in the situation due to her non-medical background had a bigger impact than say if Eliza or Ben had been unable to save them.

Ben and Taylor – There wasn’t really much of a focus on Ben and Taylor, other than the fact that Ben found out about Taylor dating Darren, and that Taylor decided to drop out of school. Taylor makes it clear to him on the way home that he can’t change her mind.

Overall I felt that their subplot was minor and while it makes sense, considering what has happened in previous episodes, I felt it didn’t add anything to this episode. This subplot could have (and may be) addressed in more depth in future episodes.

As I said in the beginning of my review, this episode was an improvement over the previous one, this is due to the focus on what I’ll refer to as “supporting players”, specifically Mira and Timmy.  It will be interesting to see where we go from here with Wayne’s job offer and Mira’s clear devastation at the possibility of hers and Wayne’s relationship ending.

Stray Observations:

-Darren’s 19 years old.

-Timmy calls Mira, ‘Miraball’.

-Matty is revealed to be gay.

-Matty’s drag name is “Miss Diagnosis”, which was given to him by Ben.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “He’s puffy and swollen in the face and legs.” “Hey, you’re no oil painting either!” (Jen-Timmy)
• “Just a little prick, it’ll be two minutes.” “Was that his pick-up line with you Mira?” “Yeah or something about a cockpit.” (Wayne-Timmy-Mira)
• “You’re 42 now, that’s 60 in black fella years.” (Timmy to Wayne)
• “The nurse was cursing when I arrived and they were best friends by the time I left, so same as usual.” (Wayne to Mira on Timmy’s behaviour at the hospital)