#462
After quite some episodes with no Patricia, I've noticed that Fiona has also been absent for a number of episodes. The last couple of episodes have seen battle lines drawn on a new feud which evokes the spirit of our two absent friends.
Karen Fox is on the scene and has very quickly established herself as a controlling schemer. Already there has been a dinner party scene in which she hosts (well, gatecrashes really, but it was happening at her place) a dinner party and charmingly puts down her new enemy with a series of carefully crafted under the radar put downs ("the ultra-modern look's not everyone's cup of tea", "I didn't mean to be rude but you've been so quiet I almost forgot you were here", "Isn't it lovely to meet someone so down-to-earth for a change?"). It's so very Patricia, trying not to compare them would be an impossible task. There are some significant differences, though. So far she's less artful, complex and fascinating. But it has only been a couple of episodes and while she's no Pat she's certainly proved watchable and entertaining.
And how could she not be entertaining when Karen's prey - the target of her upper middle class landmines - is the one and only Irene Fisher. I'd forgotten what a charismatic, fun and skilled actress Judy Nunn is. With the arrival of her son Todd and his over-protective common law stepmother Karen she has some more meaty scenes and it's wonderful. As you would imagine, Irene hasn't taken Karen's acid drops sitting down. She's showing caution, but when they're alone there's no mistaking that Irene will not prove an easy win for Karen. Their first scene together, in which Karen attempted to talk Irene out of the aforementioned dinner with her son showed Irene at her fighting best:
Nobody's keeping me away from my son. And if you try I promise you'll come off second best... I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm afraid I'm going to be around for as long as Todd wants me. Now if you'll excuse me I have a dinner appointment. I'd offer you a lift but I can't imagine what we'd find to talk about. ...I think I should make one thing very clear: when I fight a battle I win. And nobody is keeping me from my son. Least of all a tarted up girlfriend of my ex-husband. Can I show you the door?
Irene has an ally in Barbara. The friendship between these two is warm enjoyable and genuine and it's a little funny to think that Cornelia's Morag would be the character on the receiving end of similar fighting talk from Judy's Ailsa four years down the line on
Home And Away. Foreshadowing Morag, Barbara - having had a conversation with Irene - was imperious, frosty and dismissive when Amanda introduced her to Karen. She managed to pull herself up to an imposing seven foot and glare down her nose, refusing Karen's proffered hand by keeping her arms firmly under the fur she was carrying. It was a marvellous sight to behold.
Some questions have been raised. Like why did Irene not confide in Amanda about Karen's pre-dinner visit. Todd I can understand, but she's bright enough to know that discussing it with Amanda when they were alone, the subject came up and the opportunity was there would have weakened Karen's threat. And why, within ten literal seconds of Karen's frosty encounter with Barbara, did Amanda start spilling all of her aunt's family secrets to this virtual stranger? Unprompted and without so much as a "may I take your coat":
She's not quite herself at the moment. Her family company's just gone on the rocks. ...She's normally very nice, but her husband's been ill and she's been forced to work. And her stepson - my creep of a husband... I shouldn't really be telling you this, but Wayne's had to take a job as a male escort.
She then went on to give Karen details of the company and Wayne's escort agency, conveniently saving Karen a whole lot of time. This undermined the character of Karen in my opinion. Finding out this information on her terms could have shown us how resourceful and determined she really is. Instead, she could not have been more passive. She was virtually handed a gold plated invitation to scheme so that her phone call to Wayne's agency could be read as curiosity if she wasn't so arch about it. In many ways it's the opposite of Patricia, who I associate with resourceful actions paired with an air of ambiguity even to the viewer. As I said though, Karen is at the very least entertaining and I look forward to more shallow scheming in the episodes to come.
Finally, I'm finding Amanda watchable. I cared not a jot for her marital sparring with Wayne. And even less for her girly chats with Lynn (if there's television in purgatory, I'm sure there must be a channel devoted exclusively to Lynn/Amanda, Lynn/Susan or Lynn/Andy scenes). But now that she's interacting with Irene and Todd she seems more interesting, more alive and more human. It's hard to pinpoint why, exactly. But gift horses and mouths.
With Jim being out of the picture for the time being and Luke doing little of any import, the O'Brien's continue to operate mostly in a vacuum with no real connection to the rest of the show. Actually it's worse than that. They do have connections to other characters but we're not seeing them. We just cut from the interesting stuff to the O'Briens. Now and then word will reach the Palmers of what's going on next door, but they don't seem to interact. The gap between the two modest neighbouring houses, it seems, is wider than the gap between Sydney and Melbourne.
Jeff is back home, now on the way to becoming a fully-fledged alcoholic. He also kind of killed the family dog when he left it alone at his hiding place with a box of snail bait. I must say there was some wonderful acting in those final scenes with the cute little dog. Unfortunately it was all from the dog who did a marvellous job of being hungry and then being dead (I didn't see him breath or move his eyelids, which are challenges for any actor I'd think).
The best thing about Jeff's runaway storyline was that he chose to ask Tony Parker to abet him. This meant a brief return for Tony and while most of his scenes were with Jeff, Tony managed to do what the O'Briens hadn't: he popped next door to see David and Beryl. It felt appropriate that his last scene was with Mr and Mrs P., albeit there was no sense of closure as he just kind of drifted off as though he'd be back in the next episode. Still, I suppose he's had a couple of previous exits, so I'll let them off.
Oh - and Kevin being back is wonderful. His delivery seems to have backtracked a little to that strange childlike kind of tone he used early in the series. But that's all the more nostalgically endearing. There's a balance being struck. It's interesting to see the boot on the other foot in terms of the extramaritals. Lynn is quite devastated, despite her own frequent wanders down the primrose path. The storyline of Kev-falling-for-a-colleague-who-then-got-blown-up-as-he-watched-leaving-him-with-PTSD-and-psychosomatic-selective-hearing-loss-only-to-fall-for-her-twin-sister-who-turns-up-on-his-doorstep-causing-him-to-lose-his-grasp-on-reality sounds absolutely ridiculous. But I'm believing it. Kev - a character I was almost glad to see the back of by the very end of his previous stint - is back to being the loveable and cheeky/sensitive young bloke we knew in Season One. No matter what the plot, if the character feels truthful I'll take it. The current state of play hints at yet more endings. But promising ones, perhaps.
