Loveday Writing

Hannah books the holiday house and arrives first, unpacking a fancy red dress and dressy heels in the master bedroom. While her son calls her to ask where the band-aids are and reveals that her husband is slacking off, Hannah does have a good time singing aloud in the house and drinking some wine left by the owners, before Alex eventually arrives two-and-a-half hours later.

As Hannah has booked them a couple’s pedicure, they walk on the side of the road to make their way to the salon, only for Hannah to tell Alex to go back to the house, as she’s constantly complaining about being thirsty and not liking her feet being touched. Hannah ends up going as she’s pre-paid for it and she doesn’t want it going to waste, only for the pedicurist to be rude to her and paint her toenails an ugly colour. Meanwhile, Alex takes the cheese platter, goes to the master bedroom and falls asleep.

When Hannah returns and finds Alex asleep in the master bedroom, she moves her stuff into the second bedroom, finds a packet of chocolates, and sits on the couch to eat them with a magazine, although she quickly falls asleep. When she wakes up, the cleaners are arriving, revealing that both she and Alex slept through the night and past the 10am checkout. Hannah and Alex hastily pack, although when Alex goes to the toilet, she discovers Hannah’s red dress and takes it with her, although ends up staining it by washing her hands and trying to wipe them dry on it.

Hannah and Alex end up sitting on the beach, talking about their lives as tired, middle-aged mothers, and reminiscing about their childhood summers at the beach, which has been shown as flashbacks throughout the episode. They end up going for a swim in the ocean before getting into their own cars and driving way. As they’re driving home, they continue talking on the phone, playing and singing to the ‘Way We Were’, one of the songs on their playlist, which they first created as children on a cassette tape, and Alex sent Hannah via an app earlier in the episode.

Overall, I actually felt that this was a weaker episode for a couple of reasons. Firstly, that Hannah and Alex only stayed at the holiday house for one night and they barely spent anytime in the house or in town. While this was deliberate for the plot, I felt it really wasted the setting. Secondly, while the flashbacks were entertaining and did its job in providing an insight into Hannah and Alex as characters, I felt that they were relied on too heavily to do this, as well as to fill time. However, I felt that the relationship between Hannah and Alex was well-established, although I did appreciate the initial mislead that Alex could have possibly been someone Hannah was having an affair with, something her own husband suspected when he read their credit card statements and saw the booking on it. That being said, I spoiled the mislead for myself beforehand by reading the episode’s blurb on the ABC iView website.

I also appreciated the first appearance of the house’s cleaners, providing a little hint of what goes on behind the scenes, as well as a transition into the next episode, the season finale, which will focus on them.

Stray Observations:

-Alison Bell (Hannah) wrote the episode.

-When Hannah checks her phone, the date is revealed to be 26 February, near the end of the Southern Hemisphere summer, signalling the summer and the show’s season coming to an end.

-Once again the house’s Bluetooth speakers aren’t working properly, continuing this season-long running gag.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “You exaggerate.” “Well, it’d be a pretty boring story if I didn’t.” (Hannah-Alex)
• “We’re women in our 40s with kids, this is how we look now.” “No J. Lo at 50.” “Fuck J. Lo!” (Alex-Hannah-Alex)
• “Thank God we didn’t get Dad’s tone-deafness.” “No, just his high cholesterol and monkey arms. Christ they’re long! So long!” (Hannah-Alex)
• “Who’s got the energy and the interest? I’m flattered that he thinks I have.” (Hannah to Alex on her husband texting her thinking that she’s having an affair)