Loveday Writing

It’s Christmas in the outback in this episode and it’s not happy for everyone, and I’m going to review it character by character.

Eliza and Pete

Eliza and Pete spend most of the episode tending to frequent flyer, David, who has had five retrievals from a private medical retrieval service in the last six months. Eliza and Pete don’t find anything wrong with him and leave to attend to a car accident, when Pete drives David’s car back to him before their flight, he finds David on the floor having a seizure and has Eliza and Nigel come back to assist. When Pete discovers that David’s blood sugar is extremely low, Eliza goes through his bin and finds an empty insulin pen and asks him how much he injected himself with. David admits he injected himself with five units so he’d be taken seriously by them, and admits he is lonely and hasn’t been able to cope since his husband, Gary’s, death. Eliza then chastises him for wasting their time and resources.

Later, Pete and Eliza are in David’s kitchen, where Eliza feels guilty for chastising David and tells Pete that she’s not okay, in a general sense, as she’s not welcome at work functions because the town might turn against her. Eliza, Pete and Nigel end up making a Christmas lunch for themselves and David, with the few things he has in his cupboard, fridge, and freezer. When David asks Pete if he’s married and he says it didn’t work out that way, David tells him that things don’t just work out you have to make them work. Afterwards, as they are washing the dishes, Pete finally admits that he went to Adelaide to avoid everyone, especially Eliza, and that he still has feelings for her. Eliza is clearly shocked and dismisses his revelation as being on lonely at Christmas, and that she is happy with Ryan.

Later, Pete calls Leonie to ask her to stop Ryan from giving Eliza a pair of diamond earrings that he had planned on giving her for Christmas, as Eliza’s ex-husband, Ed, gave her diamond earrings after he cheated on her, and then asks when Henry’s uni holidays finish. On their return flight, thanks to another pilot, Nigel and David can be seen singing Christmas carols together.

When they all eventually return to Broken Hill, Eliza is seen waiting outside the local club and goes to head home, but goes inside when she hears and sees an ambulance arrive to attend to Anna. Leonie asks Eliza to look at Anna’s cuts, but Anna refuses her medical advice. Chaya chastises Eliza for not staying away, but Eliza points out that Broken Hill is her home too and asks her how long she is supposed to walk on eggshells for around everyone. When Chaya mentions Anna’s blood type (O) to the paramedics as they take her away, Eliza questions this and later reveals to Chaya that Poppy’s blood type is AB, which means Poppy isn’t Anna’s biological daughter.

Afterwards, Eliza starts to walk home and tells Ryan that she doesn’t need him to protect her (as he tried to do so when Anna was chastising her). Ryan then surprises her with his Christmas present – a holiday at the Great Barrier Reef for her and Henry.

Matty, Chaya, and Caleb

Matty spends most of the episode acting strangely around Chaya, trying to avoid her after his kiss with Caleb, meanwhile Chaya spends most of the episode preparing for a fundraiser and is clearly experiencing PTSD from the bus accident. Anna and Poppy show up at the fundraiser, where Anna starts drinking heavily, with Poppy concerned for her.

As Matty is getting dressed into his drag persona, Miley High, backstage, Caleb comes in to encourage him. When they kiss, Mira walks in and quickly walks back out. When Chaya sees Caleb and Matty interacting in a flirty manner during Matty’s performance, she asks Mira if they are mates now. Afterwards, Chaya asks Caleb out on a real date, but he rejects her as he’s seeing someone, a man, but doesn’t tell her that he’s seeing Matty.

When a drunken Anna gets on stage and starts talking about Joe, Poppy tells her to get off the stage and that she is embarrassing herself, especially as she is changing the narrative about her relationship with Joe, as they used to fight all the time. When Poppy walks away and Anna tries to go after her, she falls off the stage and lands on a table with glasses, cutting her arm. When Chaya tries to help her up, Anna pushes Chaya off of her.

Towards the end of the episode, Chaya vents her frustration and sadness over Caleb rejecting her to Mira. When Mira doesn’t respond, she figures out that Caleb is seeing Matty.

The episode ends with Chaya taking Taylor’s prescribed painkillers instead of paracetamol for her minor injuries, breaking her sobriety.

Wayne, Mira and Matty

The start of the episode has Wayne and Naomi providing a handwashing session at a local clinic to local children, at the end of it, Naomi gives Wayne a Tiwi sculpture as a Christmas gift.

Later, Wayne, Mira and Matty attend to a man, Pradeep, injured in a jet ski crash at McKenzie Island, whose daughter, Tanika, speaks and understands limited English. They quickly get Pradeep on the plane, and on the way back, Matty finds the Tiwi sculpture that Naomi gave Wayne, which has a card that Naomi signed off with a kiss. When Pradeep is crashing, Matty tells Wayne he thinks he has a spinal epidural hematoma and they’ll have to treat it with an injection. Whilst Mira tries to comfort Tanika, she shows Mira pictures of their holiday on her phone and they realise that Pradeep was stung by a blue-ringed octopus, and he’ll just need fluids and dialysis to flush the poison out of his system.

Throughout the episode, Mira chastises Matty for not being open and honest with Chaya, and he ends up telling her to keep an eye out on what’s going on between Wayne and Naomi.

Darren and Taylor

Darren visits Broken Hill for Christmas and Taylor is nervous about telling him that he is the father of her baby. It’s revealed that Darren has a girlfriend back in Dubbo, and that Wayne told him about Taylor’s pregnancy. Taylor tells him that he’s the father.

Later, when Darren asks her whether she thinks she will continue with the pregnancy or not, she tells him that she doesn’t know yet, but that she has always wanted to be a mother, but her kidney disease makes her pregnancy a high-risk one.

Towards the end of the episode, Darren comes to Taylor’s apartment and tells her that he supports her, no matter what choice she makes, and they kiss.

Leonie and Graham

Leonie and Graham have returned from their holiday and spend the episode helping out at Chaya’s fundraiser. Graham is later seen dressed as Santa and gives Poppy the running blade she has been wanting as a Christmas gift. He can later be seen sitting down due to feeling dizzy, but whether this is due to him being a little drunk or due to some sort of unidentified medical issue is not made clear.

Overall, I felt that this was a solid Christmas episode for the show, juggling the realities of their profession with the joys and expectations that come with Christmas, pretty well. Avoidance was a major theme in this episode – with Pete addressing his own avoidance as he finally reveals his feelings to Eliza, to Pete and Taylor trying to avoid celebrating Christmas due to their shared grief over the loss of Taylor’s parents, to Matty avoiding telling Chaya the truth about his developing relationship with Caleb.

There were also some minor details in the episode that I loved, such as Graham making reference to It’s a Wonderful Life to Taylor and Chaya, who hadn’t seen the film but are shown watching it at the end of the episode. I also appreciated the twist of Pete telling Leonie to not let Ryan give Eliza a pair of diamond earrings not out of jealousy, but empathy towards Eliza, due to her ex-husband giving them to her due to cheating guilt. I’m also hoping that there isn’t another love triangle drama developing with Wayne, Mira and Naomi.

It will be interesting to see where we go from here, with the reveal of a lot of secrets in this episode, especially with Anna not being Poppy’s biological mother, and what this will mean going forward.

Stray Observations:

-Nigel has five brothers.

-It’s revealed in this episode that Henry is studying in Canberra.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Get Mariah cranking in late October, I say!” (Ryan to Pete and Leonie on Christmas)
• “Hot elf is definitely a vibe.” (Caleb to Chaya on her Christmas outfit)
• “It’s that post-hospital glow.” (Poppy to Chaya on Chaya telling her how good she looks)
• “You’re beautiful, when did you get so good looking?” “I don’t remember” (a drunk Anna-Caleb)