Loveday Writing

This episode is all about a rich, entitled family and poison.

The episode kicks off with Harry meeting up with Alexa to give her the case of the week – Tyler Wicks, A-list chef accused of poisoning his rich, entitled client, Louie, by Louie’s in-laws, the wealthy Boyd family. The Boyd family were away on a private yacht, but Louie was home alone and found in the bathroom by the housekeeper, with one of his eyebrows shaved off. He was poisoned with a native plant, tutu, that Tyler is accused of mistaking for asparagus and cooking into Louie’s last meal. Harry asks Alexa to look into as Tyler is a friend of Reuben’s, and Reuben has asked Harry to ask Alexa to look into it further.

When Alexa and Madison look through the case file, they find another toxin in Louie’s body that is the main ingredient in eye drops, but it was dismissed as irrelevant as eye drops were found in his belongings. Reuben drops by and asks Alexa personally to clear Tyler’s name as Tyler is a friend and mentor, and gave him a go when no-one else would.

When Alexa talks to Tyler, Tyler tells her that someone is setting him up and that the tutu tastes awful even after cooking it. Tyler asks Alexa to sort everything out to regain his reputation and life.

Alexa then goes to see Mal and Karin Boyd, who tell her that Louie fit right in with the family, but he didn’t join them on the family yacht trip as he wasn’t feeling well. Karin tells her that Tyler yelled at Louie not long before he died. However, when Alexa asks if she can look around in Louie’s car, they deny her request. Alexa then wanders into the garden and meets Louie’s fiancée, and Mal and Karin’s daughter, Beatrice. Beatrice isn’t exactly torn up about Louie’s death and doesn’t believe Tyler killed him. Beatrice tells Alexa that she’s studying a phytotherapy degree (herbal and plant-based medicine) and gives her some Eyebright to use in her food. When Alexa throws the Eyebright out of her car window as she leaves, she notices Reuben working for the Boyd’s as their new personal chef. When Alexa and Madison go to Reuben’s café and try to talk Reuben out of working for the family as someone in the family may be Louie’s killer, Madison agrees to work with him so he’s not alone.

Whilst Madison is working with Reuben at the Boyd’s home, she looks around and meets their son, Holden. Alexa calls her and tells her she plans on crashing the Boyd’s fancy lunch and asks her to find Louie’s car keys and wallet. Whilst Madison is looking for these things, she overhears Karin tell her lunch guests about how she is immunocompromised due to an illness she contracted in her twenties, which led to her losing a kidney.

Madison gives Alexa Louie’s keys and wallet, as well as a discarded polaroid of Beatrice and Tyler celebrating something together. When Madison returns, she finds Beatrice flirting with Reuben. When Alexa snoops in Louie’s car she finds a card for Louie that talks about a deal from one “old boy” to another, and the keys and swipe card to a storage unit.

Later, Madison finds Beatrice “studying” outside and asks her about her studies. When Madison asks her about herbal medicine theories that have been debunked, Beatrice doesn’t seem to know about them. Meanwhile, Alexa tries to gain access to the storage unit but the staff won’t let her in as she can’t provide payment for the unit or police ID. Alexa then goes to Reuben’s to ask Harry for a search warrant and it’s revealed that Tyler is working there.

When Alexa asks Tyler about the polaroid, he tells her that they were celebrating her latest exam results. When Alexa asks Tyler about Beatrice’s lack of grief and studies, Tyler tells her that Beatrice loved Louie and that she may have been flirting with Reuben so she could have secret access to bacon, even though she’s a vegan. When Alexa gets home, she tells Madison that Tyler had also been helping Beatrice with her homework as she had been failing her course. Alexa also shows Madison the card, which makes her think of private schoolboy hazing. They discover that Holden and Louie went to the same private school together, with Louie being a few years older than Holden.

When Alexa goes back to the Boyd’s house and speak to Holden, Holden tells her he sold Louie a car and that Louie made some bad investments recently. Alexa then asks Madison to go snooping around Holden’s room, where she is able to find and download files on Holden’s computer, but is caught in the act by Karin. Karin wants Reuben to fire Madison, but they both manage to talk her out of it. Alexa then calls Madison and tells her that the company Louie invested in is an empty lot and it’s named after an anime character, and Holden loves anime. When Holden overhears Madison on the phone with Alexa, Madison leads him on to believe that she has a crush on him. While Madison and Holden sit by the pool, he reveals that Louie got what he deserved and asks Madison out to dinner at the Burger Shack, the fast-food place he asked her to get fries from earlier.

Back at Alexa’s house, it’s revealed that the money Holden conned out of Louie was donated to an anti-bullying charity, and Madison and Alexa figure out that Holden wasn’t on the family yacht trip that night through his Burger Shack app order history. When Alexa goes to see Holden about this at his car dealership and his scam, Holden admits that he conned him and shaved off his eyebrow, thinking he was sick or drunk, not dead. Later, Karin shows up at Alexa’s house whilst talking with Harry, to confront her for making Holden cry during her confrontation with him, and shows her and Harry a video of Tyler yelling at Louie.

Later, Alexa and Madison manage to gain access to Louie’s storage unit, after Harry gives Alexa the warrant she needed, and find that it’s a mess, meaning someone got to it first, looking for something. When they watch the surveillance footage from a camera nearby, it’s revealed that Karin was the one who went into the storage locker first. When Alexa confronts Karin with this, she tells her that she found out about the storage unit months ago and went there to get rid of any of his stuff from his former life as a playboy so Beatrice wouldn’t see it. As she leaves, she goes to see Mal and Beatrice, who are celebrating Beatrice getting an A-plus on her latest uni assignment. Alexa asks Louie about the video and if she’s seen Tyler. Beatrice, unconvincingly, says no.

Later, Alexa asks Tyler if he helped Beatrice with her latest assignment but he tells her he’s had no contact with the Boyd’s since he was accused of Louie’s murder. Madison then shows her a private album of photos on Louie’s old social media profile of a half-naked unknown woman with a surgical scar, which reveals that Karin and Louie had an affair years ago.

Later, Madison snoops around whilst on the phone with Alexa, in Mal and Karin’s bedroom, and finds a shared computer, with a file called ‘Beatrice.’ However, Holden catches her in the act. When Madison gives the phone to Holden, Alexa tells him that Madison is trying to figure out which one of his parents killed Louie.

Alexa confronts Karin as she comes home, she tells Karin (and the audience) that she tried to poison Louie slowly with eye drops in his daily smoothie, after he was brought home to meet the family by Beatrice, years after their affair, and she was worried he wouldn’t keep their affair secret. Whilst she made him sick, the poisoning through eye drops was taking too long. She ended up going with the tutu plant, as she was the other person helping Beatrice with her studies, and in her first year, they both learnt about the tutu plants. Beatrice snuck the tutu in with the asparagus on the morning of the family yacht trip. Karin tells Alexa she begged Louie to leave Beatrice, even offering him money, but he refused as he loved Beatrice. The police then come and arrest Karin.

The episode ends with Tyler and Reuben cooking dinner for Alexa and Madison, with Tyler revealing that he has a super yacht cooking contract lined up. He asks Reuben to work for him, but Reuben prefers his café.

Stray Observations:

-According to Alexa, her sourdough bread is chewy, not dry.

-According to Reuben, in New Zealand, you’re only two degrees of separation away from someone who owes you a favour.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Sorry, certified caffeine addiction.” (Harry apologising to a woman in a café queue on Alexa’s behalf after Alexa has a go at her for ordering coffee for her dogs)
• “Are you naturally this antagonistic, or do you work on it?” (Harry to Alexa on her outburst in a café queue)
• “Wow, you made a murder suspect cry, is that a first?” (Harry to Alexa on Alexa making Holden cry)