Loveday Writing

After her unwanted interaction with the snarky postal worker, she meets with Harry in the park to briefed on the case of the week. Paddy Jones, resident of Woodhouse Street, which is famous for its Christmas lights display, fell off his roof on Christmas Eve after going up there to fix a faulty Rudolph decoration. As everything points to it looking like an accident, Harry is asking her to prove it was one as Paddy’s wife, Josie, believes the neighbours, Luke and Heather, are responsible for his death. Harry explains this is due to the rivalry Paddy and Josie had with them for the past couple of years.

Alexa goes to see Josie, who tells her that she and Paddy had been living in their home for 40 years and that Luke and Heather gave them a box of cream/white fairy lights to fit in with the street’s aesthetic. She also tells Alexa that Paddy had been on the roof hundreds of times and was capable, not the type to fall off a roof, and Luke said to Paddy in a sarcastic way that he hoped he didn’t fall off the roof.

When Alexa goes into Josie’s backyard to look around, she finds security cameras in another neighbour’s backyard, and Luke’s son, Oscar, says hello to Alexa over the fence. When Luke sees this, Alexa asks him if she can talk to him. When Alexa goes over to Luke’s house, he and Heather tell her that Paddy and Josie always complained about everything, and that Paddy had a heart attack last year and Paddy’s neighbour on the other side, Monique, gave him CPR and saved his life. As Alexa is leaving, Monique and her husband, Hamish, walk by with their dogs and Alexa asks to see their security camera footage. When she goes to their house, Hamish emails her the footage, and they tell her that Paddy constantly complained about their dogs, Bianca and Faye, digging underneath the fence to get into his yard.

When Alexa returns to her apartment, Madison tells her after digging around Council records that Luke and Heather applied to build a new carport two years ago but their application was rejected due to complaints from Paddy and Josie, and that Paddy called noise control on Hamish and Monique’s dogs seven times over three months. When Alexa and Madison watch the footage from Hamish and Monique’s cameras, they note that Paddy fell from the roof at 10.15pm, and notice Luke and Heather’s sensor light activated a couple of times, indicating that one of them left their house that night.

Alexa goes back to Luke and Heather’s house to speak with Heather. She asks Heather if she and Luke were home all night and Heather clearly lies. Alexa then goes to Luke’s office and asks him the same question, only for him to get defensive, refuse to answer, and throw Alexa out. Before she leaves, she hears a mobile phone ring, but it’s not the flip phone on his desk. As she is leaving, she notices through his office window that Luke has a burner phone, another flip phone. When Alexa tells Madison about this, she calls Beth and asks if she wants to steal it.

Later, Alexa goes back to Paddy and Josie’s house and gets on the roof to look around. She takes photos of the transformers used for the lights and sees Monique visiting Heather. When she gets off the roof, she finds Paddy’s heart medication in the kitchen and asks Josie about his heart condition. Josie tells her that Paddy had an arrythmia which was resolved with a pacemaker.

Back at Alexa’s apartment, Madison gives Alexa a business proposal on the fake app she designed for Beth to pitch to Luke at his office and then leaves to see Josie’s Christmas lights display, which is still up in honour of Paddy. However, Madison calls Alexa later to tell her that Josie used the fairy lights Luke and Heather gave her on their fence to spell out the word ‘killers’. Alexa goes to see Josie afterwards and gives Josie her phone number to call her if she plans on getting revenge again, so she can vent, to prevent any legal action. However, the next day, Harry goes to Alexa’s apartment to tell her that Luke and Heather are pursuing legal action against Josie.

Later, Beth goes to see Luke, who loves the app proposal, and when he give her a canned drink, she takes the opportunity to shake it, so it spills when she opens it. When this happens and Luke leaves to get a towel, Beth steals both of his flip phones, not knowing which one is the burner phone Alexa saw him using. At Reuben’s Café, Alexa goes through the burner phone and finds a text from a number he keeps texting, which says ‘I think your neighbour saw us’, moments later, despite the phones being older, Luke manages to catch Alexa with the phones as he used their GPS settings to track them down.

Alexa and Luke go for a walk, where Luke admits to having an affair with a colleague. As Heather said she and Luke were home all night, she lied for him. Alexa goes back to her house to see her and she reveals that she knows about his affair and puts it down to an early mid-life crisis. Later that evening, Josie calls Alexa after hearing someone on her roof. Alexa comes over, but the person on the roof is already gone.

Later, Madison tells Alexa about the Instagram account Monique set up for her dogs and that it’s so popular she is making money from it via sponsorships. Alexa then goes back on Paddy and Josie’s roof to figure out what made Paddy fall and whilst she’s up there, she sees and hears Monique and Josie arguing over Monique’s barking dogs, culminating in Monique cruelly telling her not to give herself a heart attack. Alexa also notices one of the transformers missing from the last time she was up there.

When Alexa shows Josie a photo of the transformer that is now missing, Josie tells her she doesn’t know what or where it is as Paddy handled the electronics. When Alexa asks her about Paddy’s pacemaker, Josie reveals that he got his first pacemaker eight years ago but he had to get it replaced because it malfunctioned, which is why he had a heart attack whilst fighting with Hamish and Monique. His new pacemaker kept a digital record of his heartbeats and reveals that the pacemaker stopped one minute before Paddy fell from the roof.

When Alexa and Madison discuss the pacemaker, Madison gets a notification of a new post on Monique’s “dogstagram” page and mentions that Monique was a registered nurse before she became an influencer.

Alexa then goes to see Hamish and Monique, where she reveals to Hamish (and the audience) that Monique killed Paddy by getting his pacemaker to short out by placing an invisible electric fence on his roof, the same one she used to use to keep her dogs in her yard. Monique reveals she did this out of retaliation for Paddy threatening to poison her dogs.

Towards the end of the episode, Will comes to see Alexa with a bottle of wine he stole from a prospective client who ended up scamming him. Alexa gives the bottle to Josie, who she meets up with at her house. As Reuben is helping take down the decorations, Luke offers to help but Josie declines and asks him to thank Heather for the rum balls (which turned out to be bliss balls) hinting at a possible reconciliation between the neighbours. The episode ends with Madison turning up with a basket of Easter eggs, much to Alexa’s chagrin, although she ends up eating one.

Overall, I felt that this was another solid episode that stood out more due to its holiday setting, albeit three weeks after the holiday, but still revolving around it. I appreciated the unusual motive and execution of Paddy’s murder, and while Will’s appearance was very brief it didn’t go to waste with the reveal that his business is progressing and that he managed to get scammed by a prospective client, experiencing some karma for his own past actions.

I also appreciated Beth playing a part in this episode, even though Madison has returned, as I questioned whether she would still be a part of the show, however they didn’t share any scenes together.

Stray Observations:

Running gag – Alexa’s hatred of holiday seasons lingering and starting early.

–Luke and Heather McGraham named their house the “McGraham Mews”. Mews are houses that have been converted from stables.

-Madison put a Christmas collar on Chowder and “installed” a Christmas tree in the apartment.

-This episode marks the first time we see Alexa’s bathroom.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Reuben, where the hell did all these people come from? And why don’t they go back there?” “Uh, well, I kind of like having customers.” (Alexa-Reuben on his café being busy)
• “Don’t tell me to get a cat.” “I wouldn’t dare, cats are jerks.” “Well, I quite like them actually.” (Josie-Alexa-Josie on Josie’s loneliness)
• “Just be cool, fool.” (Alexa to Madison when Luke catches them at the café with his phones)
• “It gets better, you know. I mean you’ll always miss him, but eventually the memories stop hurting your heart and just make you smile.” (Alexa to Josie on being a widow)