Loveday Writing

Following up from last week’s episode, this one focuses on New Year’s Eve.

Eliza, Pete and Ryan

The episode kicks off with Eliza and Ryan attending to a man’s wound from misusing New Year’s Eve fireworks on his property. On their way back to base, Eliza reveals that she is going on her holiday to the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow, and that Ryan and his daughter, India, will be joining them.

Later, Eliza, Pete and Ryan attend to a hot air balloon that has crash landed over power lines, trapping a couple, Helen and Dev, inside. Due to the power not being out, Eliza and Ryan can’t attend to them straight away, and communicate with Dev through a walkie-talkie, until Ryan can determine if the power is truly out. They eventually discover that Helen has had a stroke, and that they were in the hot air balloon as Dev was proposing to Helen. To distract Dev, Pete asks Dev about the ring and he describes it but reveals that he dropped it during the crash.

When Ryan tells Pete that he can’t say for certain if the power is off and if it’s safe for them to attend to Dev and Helen, Pete starts fighting with him as time is being wasted. Dev, in fear for Helen’s life and growing increasingly agitated, jumps out of the basket. Whilst he is fine when he lands, Ryan tells him to shuffle his feet or jump with both feet at the same time to prevent getting electrocuted, but he does anyway when he takes a step. Ryan then drives away to turn the power off himself manually and once he has, Eliza and Pete attend to both Dev and Helen, having to share equipment between them, as they were only prepped for one patient. It quickly becomes clear that they have to choose between them in terms of what hospital they go to, Eliza chooses Dev, due to his heart needing treatment from a cardiologist.

When Dev comes to onboard and Eliza tells him he needs care in Mildura, he tells her to prioritise Helen’s care, which leads to Eliza asking Mira to redirect them to Adelaide. During the flight, they witness the phenomenon of Fata Morgana.

Towards the end of the episode, Eliza, Ryan and Pete make up, with Pete telling Eliza that Ryan is a good man. When Ryan gets on one knee with what turns out to be Dev’s ring, Eliza immediately tells him no. Whilst Eliza and Ryan try to play the moment off as light-hearted, Ryan is shown as clearly taken aback by her reaction.

Matty, Chaya, Leonie and Graham

Matty spends the episode tending to a young woman, Tegan, who presented at a clinic with a head injury. When Matty asks the clinic for an ECG, they have completed one, however with their equipment being outdated, Matty asks Wayne over the phone for a second opinion as she presented with a lot of PVCs (Premature Ventricular Contractions) and persistent vomiting, texting a picture of the ECG to him.

When Matty witnesses Graham getting dizzy as they prepare for the return flight, he calls Leonie and asks for a pick-up. Leonie sends Chaya, as she is the only person who would be sober on New Year’s Eve. Chaya and Leonie end up driving an ambulance to Matty and Tegan, and during the ride, Chaya tells Matty that she knows about him and Caleb dating, making her anger at his dishonesty clear.

When Tegan starts crashing, Matty calls Wayne to get his second opinion on the ECG, only for him to reveal that he hadn’t looked at it, due to being caught up at the fundraiser. When Wayne looks at it, he tells Matty that the ECG is showing Prolonged QT. With this diagnosis, Matty and Chaya manage to stabilise Tegan, with the bottle of pills falling out of Chaya’s pocket in the process, which Matty finds.

When they return to base, Matty confronts Chaya about the pills but she lies and tells him that she was giving them to Taylor. Matty then chastises Wayne for simultaneously dismissing him as a nurse and getting him to do everything, and making him feeling like an idiot brother when he is actually a competent flight nurse. Leonie asks Graham to get a check-up, as his boss, to find out what’s causing his dizziness.

Wayne, Naomi, and Aunty Sal

Wayne was mostly in the background for the episode, as he was in Adelaide with Naomi and Aunty Sal to go to a fundraiser to get funding for their local clinics. When Aunty Sal constantly needs to go to the toilet and tells Wayne and Naomi that something is coming out that shouldn’t, she ends up going to hospital to be treated for a uterine prolapse.

With Naomi taking Aunty Sal to the hospital, Wayne is forced to go to the fundraiser on his own. When Wayne comes back from the fundraiser and tells Naomi that he managed to get six months’ worth of funding, Naomi asks him why he hasn’t spread Timmy’s ashes yet. He tells her that he’s worried about losing Timmy for good if he does. Naomi counters that by letting Timmy go, he will be free and will always be around him.

Wayne ends up calling Mira and asking her to pick them up to take them back to Broken Hill. During the flight, they also witness the Fata Morgana phenomenon, with Naomi saying they are known in the Indigenous community as ‘Min Min Lights’ and can be viewed as either a good or bad omen.

Overall, this was a good, borderline filler episode. There was minor progression on the bus accident story arc, with Chaya talking to Anna about the reveal of Poppy not being her biological daughter, with Anna immediately clearing up that Poppy was conceived via a donor egg, and Joe knew about it and that’s why they were fighting. I personally don’t understand the need for this addition to the story arc, as it doesn’t progress it and isn’t really relevant to the accident itself. We also find out that Eliza has been asked by Yvette to testify that Owen wasn’t high during the crash, which isn’t surprising, but it will be interesting to see that eventually play out in court.

Chaya’s lapse in sobriety hasn’t been fully explored yet, but it will be interesting to see exactly how this plays out. Whilst I felt that Chaya’s anger towards Matty in regards to Caleb was somewhat understandable, I did also find it immature.

On a more nitpicky note, I personally don’t understand why Dev and Helen would have to be separated to receive the care that they respectively needed. Adelaide is not only a metropolitan city, but a capital city, surely Adelaide Metropolitan Hospital would have the specialists that both of them would need? Also, Mira’s hunger was a recurring theme throughout the episode, why would she not pack non-perishable food whilst she’s at work? With the emergency situations they face and the long flights, I believe a character like her should be better prepared, if not always prepared, especially as hunger would affect her performance as a pilot.

I also felt that this episode ended with a bit of a bad omen vibe, with Graham’s continuing dizziness and Leonie asking him to get a check-up, Chaya’s relapse not being fully addressed, Ryan being taken aback by Eliza’s negative reaction to a possible marriage proposal, and what appears to be a blossoming love triangle between Wayne, Mira and Naomi. It will be interesting to see if I’m right in the remaining episodes of the season.