Loveday Writing

As Richie worked as a nanny for a few families at Roderick Junior School, Alexa and Beth go down to the school, where it’s also revealed that Olive is a scholarship student there. Alexa meets Shaan and Gilda, and asks if the Friends of the Roderick Junior School (aka P&C) are going to do some sort of fundraiser or memorial in honour of Richie, but Shaan tells her they don’t want to dwell on things. Alexa takes Shaan’s wallet on her way out, meanwhile Beth befriends Shaan’s current nanny, Parker, who tells her that Gilda wasn’t a fan of Richie.

Alexa goes to Shaan’s house under the guise of finding her wallet at the school grounds, and Shaan invites her in to chat. Shaan tells her that they had booked a dinner on Waiheke Island, only for the ferries to get there being cancelled due to the storm, so they went to the Densham Hotel instead, and got the call from Chase about Richie’s death the next morning. Toby tells her that Richie was a good bloke and great with Chase. Alexa notices a hot tub in the backyard nearby.

Later, Harry comes over to Alexa’s apartment with the clothes Richie was wearing the night he died. Alexa goes through them and finds a pair of swimmers, confirming her theory that he wasn’t struck by lightning but killed in the hot tub and someone else put his clothes back on, to make it look like he was struck by lightning.

Alexa goes back to Shaan’s house and takes a photo of the breaker box connected to the hot tub, with Toby catching her in the act. Toby tells Alexa that the hot tub hasn’t worked for a while, and that he ducked into the hotel gym for a workout during the night. He also suggests Gilda as a suspect as Richie used to work for her but Shaan poached him.

Later, Beth tells Alexa that she was added to the nanny’s WhatsApp group chat (after she posed as Olive’s nanny) and that is where all the gossip is, with one piece of goss being a sweepstakes about who would be home last from Shaan’s 40^th birthday, with Parker still babysitting until 3am. Alexa tells Beth to let herself get poached by Gilda, which she manages to do so by exaggerating her non-existent nanny skills loudly in front of her, and Gilda tells her to come to her house for an interview.

Alexa finds out that a hot tub can be lethal if there is no ground fault circuit interrupter or if the break isn’t right for the wiring used, which means that someone would just have to swap out the breaker, and that someone would need to have electrical knowledge. She asks Beth to find out if Gilda has electrical knowledge or knows someone who does. Beth finds out that Gilda’s ex-husband was an electrician and company director who left her for a colleague, and that Parker was her previously nanny, who Shaan also poached. When Gilda gets a mysterious text, she rushes off and leaves Beth to babysit her sons.

Alexa and Harry go to Shaan’s house, although not together. Alexa is there to check out the breakers, whilst Harry is there as Shaan called him and wants to revise her original statement. When Shaan sees Alexa she immediately tells her to leave and she does, going to her car to get a call from Beth letting her know that Gilda left her with the kids. Alexa then sees Gilda speed into Shaan’s house but ends up hitting Harry, with Alexa finding him unconscious in Shaan’s driveway.

As Alexa is waiting outside the hospital, Madison arrives and tells her that Gilda is still at the police station. Gilda admitted that she was aiming for Shaan, but was trying to scare not kill her. Alexa tells Madison that she found doorbell cam footage from Shaan’s front door showing Gilda coming to the house at 4pm the night that Richie died, with him letting her inside, she leaves twenty minutes later, and someone else in a raincoat arrived after midnight. Madison tells Alexa now is not the time to discuss the case, it’s time to check on Harry and be there for him, but Alexa leaves, clearly upset.

The next day, Madison goes to see Gilda, clearly angry with her for hitting Harry with her car. Gilda tells her that she received a screenshot of a text that Shaan sent everyone saying she killed Richie. When she went to see Richie, she found out that Shaan and Toby were at the hotel, so she thought she’d go there and surprise them with chardonnay, only to discover that she was the only person not invited to Shaan’s birthday party. She told Parker she could have the night off and she hooked up with a man at a three-star hotel, which the elevator CCTV confirms.

When Alexa goes back to Shaan’s house and looks in the hot tub, she finds a fake nail, which is revealed to be Parker’s. Parker tells her that she and Richie had a casual relationship and when she knocked on the door and he didn’t answer, she went in through the side gate and saw him lying there, already dead. When Alexa asks why she didn’t call for help, Parker says her working visa is up and she was worried she’d be sent back home if she had to talk to the police. Madison later finds out that Parker doesn’t want to go back home as she accidentally caused a house fire by leaving a curling iron on.

When Alexa goes back to the school, she notices that the majority of the awards in the trophy case were awarded to Chase Dunlee. When his teacher, Ms. Norris, walks by, Alexa tries to ask her questions but she is evasive, only telling Alexa that no-one likes to upset Shaan. When she goes back to her apartment, she finds Harry there waiting for her, having been released from hospital with a minor head cut and a couple of broken ribs. Madison also tells her that Gilda sent a room full of flowers to apologise and asked how big of a donation she can make to the police to make the dangerous driving charge go away. Alexa also tells them that Shaan bribes the school teachers to make Chase champion of everything and suggests that Richie went to Ms. Norris and she went to the principal.

When Alexa goes back to the school, Shaan tries to bully and threaten her into backing off but she refuses to back down. This leads to Shaan firing Parker and Chase telling Olive that he can’t play with her anymore, as Shaan told him her chocolate fundraiser was a scam (with Olive revealing to Alexa that it’s partially true). Later, when she returns to her apartment, Madison tells her that Toby topped up Shaan’s bank account so she could pay her bribes, but discovers that Toby himself doesn’t have any income.

Alexa follows Toby from home to a park where she sees him reading, and then goes to the hotel gym, discovering that it’s damaged from the storm. Alexa then goes to the park and sits with Toby where she reveals to him (and the audience) that Toby lost his job, which meant that Richie wasn’t being paid and when he went to his office to ask politely about it, he found out his secret. Richie told him to tell Shaan the truth, with the intention of trying to help, or he would. On top of that, watching Richie basically living his life angered him. Before he and Shaan went to the hotel for the night, he wired the hot tub to electrocute Richie, and swiped his hotel key card at the gym door to establish an alibi, then came back to the house, put Richie’s clothes back on, and moved him to the middle of the backyard garden. The only flaw in his plan was establishing his alibi by saying he was at the gym when it was flooded during the storm and is still undergoing repairs.

The episode ends with the reveal that Olive won an award at school for her chocolate fundraiser as she showed initiative, and that Chowder has been declared “innocent” of his most recent allegations, only for Madison to tell Olive she bribed the other cat’s owner. The episode ends with Alexa carrying Chowder to her bedroom and finding a random sock on the floor, and promising Chowder that she won’t tell anyone about it.

Overall, I felt that this was another solid episode, with an interesting setting for the case of the week, although I felt that Shaan’s and Gilda’s characters were a little over-the-top. I also appreciated Olive making an appearance and the connection that she had to the setting. I also appreciated the stakes being raised slightly with Harry being hit by a car, which I didn’t see coming, although I was grateful that he wasn’t seriously hurt.

I also appreciated the humour of Chowder being accused of crimes.

Stray Observations:

-Reuben didn’t appear in this episode.

-The “Wanted” poster that has Chowder’s picture on it reads: “Wanted for home invasion, assault, theft. This cat is entering our home, attacking our cat, and stealing our socks and underwear.”

-Apparently, Harry wears swimmers as underwear when he gets behind in his washing.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “What?” “Oh, morning to you too.” (Alexa-Harry)
• “You’re gonna hang around a primary school? Expect some strange looks.” “You say that as if I don’t have a plan, Madison.” (Alexa-Madison)
• “If I’m going undercover, won’t I need a kid?” (Beth to Alexa on going undercover at the school)
• “Go with the strange lady, go.” (Alexa to Olive when Beth asks Olive for a tour of the school)
• “All I’m saying is giving out just one prize. That’s not fair.” “There literally can only be one first place, Gilda.” “And then the same kid wins every time, Shaan. The others get upset. Let’s just give every kid a medal.” “Then where is the incentive? If there’s no winner, then there is no point.” “Too right, I mean, this giving kids prizes for getting up in the morning is bonkers.” “Thank you, whoever you are.” (Gilda-Shaan-Gilda-Shaan-Alexa)
• “He’s been falsely accused.” (Alexa to Madison on Chowder being accused of theft and assault)
• “School bullies never scared me, Shaan.” (Alexa to Shaan after Shaan threatens her)
• “I’ve examined him and there is no evidence of a fight.” “I did find that random sock in my washing pile the other day.” “Well, every home has random socks, Madison.” (Alexa-Madison-Alexa on Chowder possibly being a thief and assaulting another cat)