Loveday Writing

When Reuben comes over with supplies, he tells Madison that Alexa isn’t resting in her room like she thought, instead Alexa meets up with Harry, using crutches to walk, to be briefed on the case of the week – Adam Hall, music producer, he was reported missing two weeks ago and his body was found in a burnt-out car on a reserve in Henderson. A knife wound between his fourth and fifth rib was found, which went into his left ventricle, killing him. Sonny Ingram, Adam’s neighbour in his apartment building, is the main suspect as his car was seen leaving the apartment building car park. Sonny told police his car was stolen and he was at home with his wife, Hannah, when Adam went missing.

Adam managed his girlfriend, Ruby Lake’s, pianist career, especially after she became a TikTok star. Ruby told police that she never heard of Sonny. Adam’s phone was switched off when he left and it hasn’t been found. Adam knew the person who approached and killed him. Madison then confronts Alexa about being on her feet and running off to see Harry.

Alexa watches the CCTV footage of the car park and only one of the cameras was recording that night. As Alexa has to stay off her feet, Madison has to do the in-person investigating, using a camera hidden in a frog brooch to record her interactions for Alexa to see.

Madison manages to sneak into the building and is caught by Sonny and Hannah taking pictures of the security camera that caught Adam approaching his killer. Sonny is defensive about Adam, whilst Hannah is welcoming towards Madison. When Madison is roaming the halls near Adam’s apartment, Ruby walks right by without acknowledging her.

Meanwhile, Alexa hears a knock at the door and has to get up to answer it after it keeps persisting, despite yelling at the person to go away. A little girl is at the door and tells Alexa her name is Olive Crowe and that she is her niece. Apparently, her mother, Kim, needed a break, and that Olive has the Crowe surname as she wanted to take her father not her stepfather’s name.

Madison goes back to the apartment building and introduces herself to Ruby. Ruby explains to her she walks around with her AirPods in and invites her in to chat. She meets Adam and Ruby’s flatmate, Nate, with Ruby explaining that they’ve been friends since uni. Nate does I.T. work for a law firm and is apparently a bigger fan of Ruby’s music than Adam was. Meanwhile, Alexa gets Olive to try and find a connection between Sonny and Adam. Alexa gets a text from Will to meet him outside, he tells her he’s known about Olive for a couple of months and her mother thinks he should take her for a week at a time, but he’s not ready to be a father, and asks Alexa to keep Olive for the night.

When Alexa comes back in after speaking to Will, Olive tells her that she couldn’t find any photos of Sonny and Adam, but she did find heaps of photos of Hannah, she was the Head Girl when she was in high school. They notice that Hannah had the surname ‘Ingram’ when she was in high school, possibly meaning that Sonny changed his surname to hers when they got married.

Alexa meets with Sonny at Reuben’s Café, with Olive in tow at the next table. She shows him the photo of him and Adam in high school, but he was known as Emmy Baker, due to his full name being Emerson and his birth surname being Baker. Sonny tells her that they were caught selling weed to kids, however the school didn’t want to lose their dux to the scandal so he was the only one kicked out of school and sent to jail for it. He spotted Adam when he and Hannah first moved into the apartment, however he never spoke to him as he didn’t want Hannah to know about his past.

Meanwhile, Madison goes to see Ruby at rehearsal and notices her new manager, Spencer, chastising her for freestyling her piano playing. When Ruby goes to her dressing room to compose herself, Madison follows, and Ruby tells her that Spencer accused Adam of profiting off her talent. When Ruby goes into the bathroom to hide from Spencer when she comes to the dressing room, Madison stalls her by asking for a piano lesson from her, claiming to have taken lessons in France.

Later, Alexa rules Sonny out due to the fact that he and Hannah spent their life savings trying to get pregnant and their baby is due soon, he wouldn’t risk giving that up to get revenge over an old grudge. Alexa discovers that Adam used to have a podcast on music. Meanwhile, Madison outrages Spencer by playing Chopsticks. Madison tells her that she’s nervous and asks her to get a glass of water with a slice of lemon, to provide her with the opportunity to copy files from her laptop onto a USB drive. Madison finds out that Ruby and Spencer had been in contact recently, despite Ruby telling her that they were estranged, and that Adam was suing Spencer under the Intellectual Property Act. However, Spencer didn’t kill Adam as she was on stage at a concert in Christchurch at the time of the murder.

Later, Madison goes back to Ruby’s apartment to talk to her. Ruby didn’t know that Adam was taking her to court, however he did think that Spencer was plagiarising some of her work. She also tells Madison that she and Nate are thinking about going away to Thailand and he’s paying for it. Nate also mentions a locked cupboard that Adam had which may have documents about his lawsuit. Madison offers to look in it for them if it’s too difficult, and when she does, she finds a phone in there.

Madison tells Alexa that everything on the phone dates back to a year ago and that Adam made a video saying that if it’s being viewed he’s most likely dead and Sonny would be responsible for his death. However, Alexa manages to figure out that the video is fake as Adam only knew Sonny as Emmy and some of the audio came from his podcast. When Madison tries to see Ruby again, Nate is defensive and becomes suspicious of her frog brooch, searching for any active Bluetooth devices as she leaves.

When Madison returns from trying to see Ruby, she speaks with Alexa, and Alexa discovers that her laptop camera is on and that someone is spying on her. She and Madison walk into the hallway after Alexa says on camera that there is DNA evidence that connects Ruby to the murder. She tells her not to confront Ruby and look for Olive, who has taken off without a word. Madison goes to Ruby’s apartment anyway and admits that she has been investigating Adam’s death and asks about the fake video and laptop camera. Madison then remembers that Nate has I.T. skills and goes into his bedroom to find his set up and live footage of Alexa at home, and leaves immediately.

When Alexa hears a knock on the door, she gets up and uses her mobile app to open it, clearly expecting Nate. She tells Nate (and the audience) that he was in love with Ruby, but she chose Adam and he was squeezing him out of her life. Adam told him about his past with Sonny, so he created the fake video using his I.T. skills, turned off the car park security cameras, approached Adam and stabbed him, put him in the boot of Sonny’s car, and drove away.

As Alexa is telling him this, Nate walks into the kitchen and grabs one of her knives. Alexa, unphased, hears a knock at her door and unlocks it, thinking it’s Harry, but it’s Olive with the latte Alexa asked for earlier. When Nate goes to take Olive hostage, Alexa knocks him down with one of her crutches, and holds it to his neck, with Harry and Madison rushing in moments later.

Towards the end of the episode, Alexa, free from her moonboot, goes to the park with Will and Olive. Whilst Olive is playing, Alexa encourages Will to be a good father to Olive by doing the opposite of what their own father did. Will then gives Alexa a gift that Olive made for her. Later, she goes home and dances in her kitchen, with Madison mad at her for sending her away when Nate came after her, but Alexa tells her it was to keep her out of harm’s way. She also tells Madison she did a good job with the investigation.

The episode ends with the reveal that Olive’s gift was a framed photo of the two of them.

As I said in the beginning of my review, this was the best episode of the season so far and it is for many reasons.

Firstly, with Alexa’s injury forcing her to stay off her feet, she is essentially out of action, forcing Madison to step up, which in turn gives her a moment in the spotlight. This was set up in the previous episode when Madison interviewed a possible suspect, although Alexa wasn’t happy about this. Having Madison do the heavy lifting not only shows the kind of skills she already had, but also what she’s learnt from working with Alexa over the last three years. As Madison doesn’t have the years of police experience that Alexa had, she did find herself caught in the act and stumbling a few times, but she was smart and savvy enough to get the job done.

Secondly, the introduction of Olive adds a spanner in the works in both Will’s and Alexa’s lives. Will was already making progress in going straight, his business is growing and Olive is another reason for him to continue on this path. His fear and panic over being a father when his own father was a bad role model and he didn’t know about her existence until recently, is understandable, but he does step up. I also appreciated that Olive is essentially a “mini-Alexa”.

Thirdly, Olive raises the stakes towards the end of the episode when she walks in as Nate is holding a knife. Normally when Alexa is explaining the murder to the perpetrators and the audience, Harry (and in the first season, Kieran), is either there waiting in the wings or isn’t too far away from coming and arrest them, so Alexa isn’t in any real danger (although there have been some exceptions). However, Alexa makes a rare, unintentional mistake by believing Harry has arrived when in fact Olive returns from wherever she ran off to, raising the stakes of the already tense situation with Nate. However and luckily, Alexa’s almost mother-like, as well as cop, instincts kick in and she keeps him down long enough for Harry to actually arrive. I appreciated the raise in stakes and tension in this scene as added a sense of realism.

Fourthly and on a smaller note, Jayden Daniels performance as Nate, especially during the climactic scene in Alexa’s apartment, was phenomenal.

It will be interesting to see whether Olive makes any appearances in the remaining two episodes of the season.

Stray Observations:

-Beth didn’t make an appearance nor was she mentioned in this episode.

-The gag of Will stealing/getting paid in produce that he finds on his clients’ properties continues in this episode when he mentions being paid in persimmons.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “How many more days off her feet?” “The doctor pleaded for at least a week, he almost cried.” (Reuben-Madison on Alexa’s injury)
• “It’s just a sprain.” “Not what I heard.” “Or my Achilles is about to snap like an old guitar string, but I prefer sprain.” (Alexa-Harry-Alexa on her injury)
• “I’ll be talking her out of this.” “Yeah, good luck with that.” (Madison-Harry on Alexa’s injury and taking a case)
• “You are a bad influence on one another.” (Madison to Alexa on her and Harry)
• “Oh, you’re a Crowe alright, you’ve got the sarcasm gene, welcome to the family!” (Alexa to Olive)
• “I’m getting paid in actual cash this time, not persimmons.” (Will to Alexa on his business)
• “I can’t be an honest worker and a good dad all at the same time.” (Will to Alexa)
• “You better be at Reuben’s, seriously Olive. Come home and bring a latte.” (Alexa leaving a voicemail for Olive after she takes off)
• “Are you trying to flatter me into forgiving you?” (Madison to Alexa)