Loveday Writing

Helen’s case of the week involves two estranged brothers, Morrie and Gordon, whose mother, Gabrielle, has recently passed away. Gabrielle’s will stated that Gordon is to inherit everything and when Helen notices a document missing from her file, she discovers that Roz has it. It’s a Letter of Wishes, a letter that explains how she wanted her will executed.

The Letter explains that she left everything to Gordon as Morrie’s choice to leave their Bon Jovi cover band to join a fundamentalist Christian church left Gordon without a source of income. Gordon decides to share the inheritance with Morrie, on the condition that he re-join the band and asks Helen to convince him. Gordon refuses. Helen later comes up with the solution that they turn the band into a church cover band, an idea she got from a morning radio show she regularly listens to, and both Morrie and Gordon agree.

Meanwhile, Tony and Viktor introduce Helen to an older gentleman, Howard Muzzin. He runs the local Men’s Shed, but instead Helen tries to offer him her probate services, as he’s recently lost his wife. Throughout the episode, Howard ends up stalking Helen at a local park and outside her home, trying to get her to date him, but she refuses, and tells Tony and Viktor to back off from their efforts to get her to socialise and date.

Meanwhile, Ray and George discover a rogue pigeon inside the office wall. Even though they manage to get it out of the wall, the pigeon still lurks around outside. After George gets his grandmother to build a scare owl a ’la scarecrow, only for the pigeon to sit on it, and Ray tries flashing lights only to cause a shopkeeper across the street to have an epileptic fit, Helen gets Howard to build a birdhouse to sit on the office windowsill for the pigeon to live in.

Throughout the episode, Helen and Roz butt heads as Roz keeps intruding on Helen’s meetings with Morrie and Gordon, keeps taking documents from files for her mediation business, and locks up the coffee pods and biscuits. Helen continuously sneaks into Roz’s locked office by climbing out of her own office window and through Roz’s office window. However, this backfires at the end of the episode when Roz closes Helen’s open window. The episode ends with Roz telling Ray that Helen is developing an attitude, however Ray defends Helen and tells Roz to back off as she has done her duty in mentoring Helen and to treat her with more respect, only for Helen to knock on Roz’s office window, asking to be let in.

Overall, I felt that this was a good episode. All three stories managed to connect, with Helen coming up with a solution for her case of the week by listening to a morning radio show, which Tony and Viktor criticise, and a solution to the pigeon issue at the office by getting Howard to build a birdhouse for it. Whilst Roz has generally been unlikeable throughout the series’ run, she was especially so in this episode, going as far as to say Helen and George were part of a charity intern scheme and have low IQs to impress someone, so I appreciated that Ray ended up defending Helen and calling Roz out on her bad behaviour at the end of the episode.

Stray Observations:

Episode title – Pancakes and Prayer is what Morrie’s Church does every Saturday morning as a get-together for its members.

Running gags – Ray and George’s attempts to get rid of a pigeon, and Helen stealing pods and biscuits from Roz’s office.

-Helen doesn’t get paid overtime.

-Tony, Viktor and Helen initially thought that the Men’s Shed was a gay bar.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Well, do you know Jesus Christ?” “I know of him.” “Well, why don’t you come down and meet him? We do pancakes and prayer every Saturday morning.” (Morrie-Helen-Morrie on the Church of Barnabas the Believer, which Morrie attends)
• “Well, you know I’m tempted by the pancakes, but I was brought up Catholic, so I don’t really do God.” (Helen to Morrie on his Church’s Saturday get-together)
• “It’s a place where men can socialise and get on the tools.” “Oh, it sounds exactly like a gay bar.” (Howard Muzzin-Helen on the Men’s Shed)
• “What’d you think, Hels? He seemed quite taken with you.” “Yes, he’s stalking me now.” “Oh, that’s wonderful, I really thought you’d blown it last night.” (Tony-Helen-Viktor on Howard Muzzin)
• “If you don’t like Howard, why don’t you pop down to the Men’s Shed and take your pick?” “Yes, Helen, it’s like a widower’s warehouse down there.” (Tony and then Viktor to Helen)