Loveday Writing

We then cut to Dean, the penis portrait painter who appeared in the pilot, coming to the office to see Roz, ostensibly to get his will done, but he is clearly there to ask her out. When Roz finishes her mediation session, Helen comes to tell her about Dean and asks if she wants her to get rid of him, but Roz fixes her hair and goes to see him. Later, Roz awkwardly walks into Helen’s office to see her, ostensibly to get an update on the Pastecki Estate but really to ask her if they’re “okay”, thinking that Helen hit on Dean. Roz tells Helen to clean up electrical cords laying on the floor on her way out.

Later, Helen goes to the Pastecki house, which was being cleaned out for an estate sale, only to find that the cleaners just dumped everything in garbage bags and boxes in the front yard. Before she starts throwing everything into the dumpster, Helen comes across an old book with word Kapusta on the front.

The next day, Helen goes to the office and Roz is limping as she tripped over the cords in Helen’s office the night before. Ray is worried their netball final is shot to hell, but Roz tells her that Dean is coming over to do some reiki on her ankle and she’ll play through the pain. Later, Ally Pastecki comes into Helen’s office and asks who has been at the house as she can’t find her grandmother’s recipe book. When Ally describes it, Helen realises it’s the book she found and threw in the dumpster yesterday. Helen rushes out of the office and tells George that they need to swing by the Pastecki house before their Q&A at the library.

When they get to the Pastecki house, Helen tries to climb into the dumpster, both on her own and with George trying to give her a boost, but she can’t get in. George calls Fun Peggy for help, she comes over and gives her a boost. Meanwhile, Dean performs reiki on Roz’s ankle in her office, with Ray telling her to use traditional methods to treat her ankle injury, with him telling Roz he’s going to call their doctor for painkillers as he leaves. It’s also revealed that Dean and Roz had dinner the night before and she clearly didn’t enjoy it, the reiki clearly doesn’t work for her either.

After Helen retrieves the recipe book from the dumpster, she, George and Fun Peggy go to the library for the Q&A. Meanwhile, Ray and Roz are planning their game strategy when Dean comes by to see Roz, clearly attached to her. Ray clearly doesn’t like Dean and informs him that Roz is off her face as she took codeine that the doctor gave her, as a precaution.

When Helen gets to the library, she reveals to Fun Peggy that she plans on putting on a sophisticated Q&A by serving complimentary wine and cheese (albeit cheap wine and cheese in plastic wine glasses) to the attendees, however it leads to another riot in the reading room when the attendees take the wine and cheese in bulk. Presley, the librarian, ends up calling the police to stop the riot.

After the riot ends, Ray comes by after his netball final and rightfully chastises Helen, George, and Fun Peggy for causing it. The next day, Dean comes to the office to see Roz but she tells him to leave as it’s not good time, due to setting up a mediation between the library, the Q&A attendees, and Helen.

The mediation gets off to a rocky start with Presley telling Helen and Roz that their shuffle bus driver, Laurie, was “maimed” and “blinded” when there’s only a scratch under his eye. The mediation ends with Roz proposing that Helen buy Laurie and Anne (another attendee) a Liquor Town voucher for $200 and replace the library carpet, and Helen agreeing to be the community shuttle bus driver for two weeks whilst Laurie recovers.

Towards the end of the episode, Helen returns the recipe book to Ally, and Roz asks Helen to break up with Dean for her, pointing out that she did Helen a favour by fixing the library riot situation. We then see Helen driving the community shuttle bus the next day, picking up elderly locals. When she drives up to a house and realises it’s Howard’s (who Tony and Viktor tried to set her up with in the previous episode) she quickly speeds off.

The episode ends with Helen at the blended beverage bar with Dean, breaking up with him for Roz. She also tries to do some reiki to comfort him but apparently she’s doing it too firmly and hurting him.

As I said in the beginning of my review I felt that this was the best episode of the show’s run so far, and I feel this way due to the tight writing, the exploration of another side of Roz and Ray, and the many callbacks to previous episodes and recurring characters. For example, Dean makes a reappearance after appearing in the pilot, which enables for a subplot that explores a friendlier side of Roz as she tries to date him, as well as a more hostile side of Ray, as he clearly dislikes him and his way of life. Fun Peggy also makes a reappearance, helping or at least trying to help Helen and George with their Q&A. Howard also makes a brief appearance towards the end of the episode.

In regards to the tight writing, I appreciated the focus of Roz and Ray preparing for and playing in their netball team’s final, which is a callback to the season premiere, when Roz mentioned during mediation training that she was the goal attack on her netball team. I also appreciated that Ray and George telling Helen that the last time a Q&A at the local library was cancelled a riot happened, was written ostensibly as a throwaway line but actually ended up foreshadowing what would happen later.

On a minor note, I also appreciated Ray reacting to the riot in a realistic fashion by being angry but calmly, firmly, and professionally chastising Helen, George and Fun Peggy. He may be eccentric at times, like the rest of the characters, but in this moment, he showed the professionalism and authority of a boss that is normally shown with Roz, and what he needed and clearly always possessed to make Gruber & Associates a success.

Stray Observations:

Episode title – A Very Handsome Woman is the way Dean compliments Helen when he mistakenly thinks she is hitting on him.

-According to Roz, mediation is like jazz.

-George tells Ray he’ll be 50 in 2046, putting his birth year at 1996.

-According to Dean, Helen’s aura is soupy.

-Ray refers to Roz as ‘Boom Boom Gruber’ as she’s the netball team’s top shooter.

-George mentions that the last time there was a riot in the library’s reading room that the Big Blue Bear in the Reading Chair had its head ripped off, it happened again during the riot in this episode. Apparently the Q&A at the last riot was about breastfeeding.

-Fun Peggy refers to Helen as “Hell-Meister”.

-Roz plays the position of Goal Attack and Ray plays Centre on their netball team.

-Fun Peggy has been doing an online, stand-up comedy course.

-George doesn’t so much replace the photo of Ray in the presentation with Helen, rather, he photoshops Helen’s head onto the original photo of Ray.

-George’s shirt sleeve is ripped off during the riot.

-Ray and Roz’s netball team smashed their opponents in the final, 48-22.

-Colette Mann appears towards the end of the episode playing Irma, she previously appeared as another character in the season one episode, Taken.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Do you think it will ruin our friendship?” “I’ve always thought of us as acquaintances rather than friends.” (Helen-Roz)
• “Why can’t George play?” “Over-50s league.” “Yeah, couldn’t he get in as, like, an old soul?” “Don’t joke about that, Helen, I’m really passionate about netball.” (Helen-Ray-Helen-George)
• “Reiki, what is that exactly?” “It’s the laying of healing hands.” “Well, I hope it’s his hands with Dean you don’t know, do you? He might have invented some kind of penis reiki.” (Ray-Roz-Helen)
• “This is vintage old man swag!” (George to Helen on his work attire)
• “There’s no kick-off mate, it’s netball.” (Ray to Dean)
• “Brown juice? Where is that from, the Yarra?” (Ray to Roz on Dean’s organic juice)
• “Call the police, there’s another riot in the reading room!” (Presley, the local librarian)
• “What are you doing here?” “I thought I might pop down to see if anyone needed some healing.” (Ray-Dean at the library after the riot)
• “Come on Rozzie, this is a workplace, I’ve had just about enough of the John and Yoko act.” (Ray to Roz on Dean)
• “Shut up, you fuckin’ idiot.” “Did you hear that? She just called me a fat idiot.” “She called you a fuckin’ idiot, love.” “Are you sure?” “Oh yeah, my hearing’s improved since I went blind.” (Helen [under her breath] to Anne, Anne to Roz, and then Laurie and Anne going back and forth)