Loveday Writing

The episode kicks off with Alexa “cheating” on Reuben by getting her coffee from a cart in the park and joking about it with the barista. She then meets up with Harry in the park gazebo to be briefed on the case of the week – Thalia Levin, 20, a model set to make her runway debut at a fashion show. At the rehearsal, she started vomiting and had a seizure, which led to respiratory failure. The coroner ruled her cause of death as inconclusive as there were no drugs found in her system. Thalia’s boyfriend, Trey, isn’t happy about the finding, especially as she had been receiving death threats recently.

The fashion show, which features the work of designer, Jem le Taachi, and former supermodel, Faith Cooper starring, is back on and all the people, including Thalia’s killer, will be back at the venue. Harry’s younger sister, Hinewai, is taking Thalia’s place on the runway.

Alexa goes to see Trey at Martin Reserve and asks him what he thinks happened to Thalia. He tells Alexa that she had no enemies and that he tried to get her to change her phone number and get rid of her social media accounts due to the nasty messages, but she refused as it’s part of the job. He also tells her that she signed a huge deal with a brand overseas and Jem was going to take her around the world.

Later, Alexa and Madison lie their way into the show by going undercover as an agent and model respectively. Alexa goes into the dressing room and meets Sammy Fisher, who’s in charge of hair and make-up. Sammy tells her that after Thalia’s death, the caterers were fired, the venue was deep cleaned, and she replaced all of her products. Sammy also mentions that Thalia told her about the brand deal, even though she was supposed to keep it a secret.

Later, Alexa goes to see Faith, under the guise of Jem sending her to check in, but Faith sees right through it and offers Alexa a drink. When Alexa asks to use the bathroom, she snoops through Faith’s bag and takes a bottle of pills from it. Meanwhile, Madison takes photos of Hinewai’s photos on the group pinboard. Hinewai tells Madison that Thalia was into clean living and she knows that something dodgy happened to her.

Back at Alexa’s apartment, Madison tells her that none of the models were using hardcore drugs and she tracks the death threats to Martin Reserve, near where Trey works. When Trey comes home, he finds Alexa waiting for him. Whilst he tries to deny sending the death threats to Thalia, Madison calls the burner phone he used to send them. He tells her that he was trying to scare her into moving in with him, and she thought that Faith was sending her the messages. Harry also tells Alexa that the pills were ephedrine, a diet pill that was taken off the market years ago.

Later, Alexa sneaks into Faith’s dressing room to snoop around and finds a bean of some kind on the counter. When Faith and Jem coming in after doing a television interview together and argue, Alexa hides in the closet and finds a red dress inside, pulling a loose thread from it. She overhears Faith telling Jem that he promised her the brand deal and he calls her a ghoul for bringing it up, she in turns calls him by his apparent real name, Jeffrey.

Afterwards, Alexa goes outside to speak with Jem. He tells her that Thalia was a pure soul and Faith was jealous of her, and that he hired Faith as a favour, even though they don’t get along, he never forgot where he came from and Faith was there when he had nothing. Meanwhile, as Sammy does Madison’s make-up, Faith asks Sammy to have a drink but Sammy refuses as she’s working, Alexa offers to instead, then Sammy invites Madison to her place for drinks.

Later, as she is having drinks with Faith at Reuben’s, Alexa shows Beth the bean, which is revealed to be a castor bean and they are used to make ricin, a poison. Later, Madison goes for drinks at Sammy’s place, where Sammy reveals that Faith is not as rich as she used to be and she stays with her when she’s in Auckland. Madison manages to snoop around and find boxes of beauty cream that Faith endorsed, and copies files from her computer onto a USB drive.

Later, in a limo, Faith tells Alexa that she knows she took her diet pills, and admits that every time she looked at Thalia, she saw herself 30 years ago, she hated her but she didn’t murder her.

The next morning, Will comes over to see a hungover Alexa and brings her artisanal, oak-aged, buffalo butter to thank her for investing in his landscape business, which has just picked up its first contract. Later, Alexa meets up with Madison, who tells her that the other models invited her into their Discord, which gives her access to hours of behind-the-scenes footage of the fashion show. They discuss Sammy as a possible suspect, but rule her out when they realise she doesn’t have the technical know-how to access the dark web.

When Alexa rules out Faith after she makes it clear she doesn’t know what ricin is or how to make it, when she reviews the footage, she sees Hinewai go into Faith’s dressing room after Thalia, realising that Hinewai has a motive as she replaced Thalia. Alexa awkwardly tries to ask Harry about Hinewai and he immediately realises that she thinks Hinewai is a suspect. They then go to speak to Hinewai directly, who tells Alexa that they snuck into Faith’s dressing room to take a look at the Rising Angel dress that Faith was going to model in the show, but neither of them touched it, however Alexa figured out that Thalia did touch it.

Alexa goes back to see Trey and asks him about his tattoo of Thalia that he showed her earlier, as it was of the last selfie she went him. The tattoo shows Thalia wearing the Rising Angel dress.

Later, Alexa goes to Jem’s studio and waits for him to arrive. She tells him (and the audience) that Thalia was meant to be the star of the show and that Faith couldn’t handle it, she wanted in but he didn’t want her. However, he had to put her in his show as she threatened to expose him as a fake, he was a trust fund baby, not an immigrant who went from rags to riches. He bought the castor beans off the dark web, the same site that where he bought Faith’s diet pills, made ricin and transferred it into the lining of the Rising Angel dress. However, he didn’t count on Thalia sneaking into Faith’s dressing room and trying on the dress first. The dress that Alexa came across earlier is a fake, and Faith comes in and slaps Jem for Thalia.

Towards the end of the episode, Alexa invites Will out for drinks, but he can’t go due to his curfew. The episode and season ends with Alexa, Harry, Madison, Reuben, and Beth getting together at Reuben’s Café after closing, having drinks, dancing, and pretending to model on the catwalk.

As I said at the beginning of my review, My Life Is Murder is a show that doesn’t really have any story arcs, so this episode could have easily been placed at any point in the series. I felt that the motive for the murder was cliché, but the MO was interesting. I appreciated the introduction and insertion of Hinewai, as it raised the stakes a little for Alexa and showed a slight blind spot in Harry if she had turned out to be guilty, however I knew she wouldn’t be.

As for the season as a whole, I felt this one has been the show’s strongest. After the first season established the show’s premise and characters, and the second season had to undergo massive cast and location changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic (not that this was brought into the show’s universe), this third season allowed for the characters to simultaneously grow and become more settled within themselves. This is shown with Alexa appearing to be happier than ever, Madison’s and Alexa’s emotional reactions when Harry was accidentally hit by a car by a murder suspect, and Madison’s ability to step up when Alexa was ordered off her feet due to injury.

The main characters growing and becoming more settled within themselves also allowed for the introduction of new characters, Beth (Tatum Warren-Ngata) and Olive (Nell Fisher), as well as recurring character, Will, introduced in the previous season, to make more appearances and experience growth of his own.

As mentioned in a previous review, Beth’s introduction was due to Ebony Vagulans having to isolate due to contracting COVID. I felt that Beth was a quirky, unique, and intelligent character, and you could argue, was Madison three years ago due to having to adapt to working with Alexa for the first time. However, due to Warren-Ngata having to isolate due to contracting COVID herself during production, her appearances were limited, and the transition between the two, even at times when Madison and Beth appeared onscreen together, were a little clunky.

The introduction of Olive allowed for another layer of character development with both Alexa and Will. Olive was clearly written to be a mini-Alexa, but she also enhances Will’s character growth as another motivator for him to stay on the straight and narrow after establishing his landscaping business, and enhances Alexa’s character growth as an aunt and showing her softer side. Speaking of Will, I appreciated that he made more appearances and experienced major growth. His appearances provided great comic relief.

I also appreciated the moments where the stakes were raised in some cases, such as when Harry was hit by a car and when Olive was nearly taken hostage by a murderer. On a smaller note, whilst I find Alexa’s minor flirting with both Harry and Reuben funny, I’m hoping the writers make up their mind about whether one of them is actually going to be a love interest for her or not.

On a smaller note, I appreciated the addition of brighter colours this season, mainly in the form of Alexa’s wardrobe. According to an interview TV Fanatic conducted with Lucy Lawless, this was deliberate, due to the world’s bleak state over the last few years and the need for colour and positivity.

Overall, this was a fun season to review and I hope it’s renewed for a fourth, but if it isn’t, it ended on a good note.

Stray Observations:

Episode title – Rising Angel is the name of the signature dressed that was designed for Faith to model at the fashion show.

-Madison once spent a week’s rent on a la Taachi scarf in a vintage store in Melbourne.

-The name Alexa gives her fake agency is The Crowe’s Nest Agency.

-Reuben had a poster of Faith Cooper on his bedroom wall.