Season Two
Golden Fleece
Even within the two-part episodes I’ve noticed there are also hidden some even smaller one-episode arcs. This may have gone unnoticed if it weren't for faces that would go on to be familiar being part of these. Leila Hayes and her asthmatic son, for example, only appeared in the first episode of that two-part story, with some low-key resolution before they vanished.
In this episode, that role goes to the future Donald Fisher as Neville. It’s an interesting little role, with the character visibly nervous and overwrought, escalating a little with every scene as he tries to rush results of his blood tests, convinced something is being hidden from him. Unfortunately, there isn’t a doctor to be seen, so he ends up holding Shirley at knifepoint (well, letter-opener-point, since that’s the most vicious tool to hand) until she is rescued by Frank (and so propelling that relationship a little further with Shirley being too grateful to snark at him anymore). Simon, when he does finally show up, diagnoses some kind of toxicity from an excess of some vitamin or hormone or something, and poor Neville is ushered off to Sydney for treatment, presumably making a full recovery.
The reason the surgery is so devoid of doctors is because Terence is disappearing on trips to Sydney. Initially for business, but then because he meets Trudi, who combines the gruff lorry-driver’s bluster of David Palmer with the ego and singing talents of Garnet McGee. It’s a deadly combination, and Terence falls hard for this rough diamond who follows him back to Wandin Valley.
Terence takes her to to the club where she hijacks the stage and a local guitar player and raises hundreds for the hospital with a set of songs that we experience rather too fully. One can’t help feeling she’d have raised even more had she demanded money to
stop singing.
Thanks to her easy charms and incredibly tight jeans, the locals fall for Trudi’s no-frills charms… with two exceptions. Vicky feels Trudi is a grifter who has got her claws into a doctor and is playing him like a fiddle (and this while Vicky is playing games with Simon by telling him they shouldn’t spend any more time together. I suppose nobody knows a woman like another woman). And Terence hides Trudi completely from poor Marta, meaning dateless Marta spends her time on a late shift at the hospital while everyone else is out getting pissed.
There’s a semi-amusing sub plot with Bob trying to fit the bidet Molly’s mother has sent the Joneses along with the replacement loo, without having a clue what it is. He initially mistakes it for a very low sink, and then a urinal. Bob’s toothache also provides a somewhat more tedious sub-plot, with the drunk medics - after breaking into the dentist’s surgery - performing surgery on the even more drunk Bob (someone - Shirley I think - blithely comments that since Bob is too drunk for an intravenous anaesthetic, they’ll simply use nitrous oxide instead). When Terence, Simon and Brendan fail, Vicky is called to extract the offending tooth. Still, I do love the relaxed small town attitude of the staff. No matter what happens, Terence invariably instructs the staff to treat someone with X serious medicine “and I’ll write it up later”.
According to a table on the always-reliable Wikipedia, Bob is one of three characters who became a regular for Season Two, with the others being Esme and Vernon, but none have yet been added to the credits, there’s no sigh of Esme and we haven’t even
met Vernon yet. Still, I suppose it’s a very long season, so it’s early days.
There’s a familiar face in the future Spider Webb, here playing Eldred, a hospital patient who forms a bond with a juvenile delinquent who Frank orders to do community service at the hospital. It’s a surprisingly effective little arc. The young actor playing Jason (or Jacko, because he insists “Jason is a pouffy name”) feels like a seasoned pro, giving great attitude and - despite looking around eight years old - smoking like a navvy (he even inhales. Lorrae Desmond should take a few notes. I’m constantly distracted by seeing her holding her cigarette and constantly flicking ash into an ashtray without putting it anywhere near her mouth. Smoke or don’t smoke, for Christ’s sake). He’s from the Jodie Foster “old head on young shoulders” school, and this makes the angry boy’s bond with this sage old man feel more meaningful.
Of course this is another example of the blithe townspeople throwing the rule book out of the window, which adds to the entertainment. He is left to provide massage treatment to Eldred (“just do this on his elbows, shoulders, buttocks…” instructs Brendan casually before leaving him to it) and witness to things that someone his age simply shouldn’t be. He is there when the old man has a stroke, and staff don’t even notice he’s there for about five minutes, after which he is slowly ushered out.
After the stroke, Jacko continues to be Eldred’s key-worker. When Eldred manages to write down “dog” with the hand on his functioning side, Jacko goes to the vet to check how Zeus is doing. Since we were approaching the end, I had a feeling what was coming next and sure enough, Jacko returned to find Eldred’s bed empty and made up, and was informed that Eldred had died. It reminded me very much of that scene where Bobby ran to Alan Fisher’s hospital room to make much the same discovery and, even though it wasn’t as powerful here as it would be there, it was effective enough.
Jacko is eventually relieved of his duties, though says he may continue to drop in (spoiler, it looks as though he may drop by at least once more). And by the way, he mentions, he’s decided to keep Eldred’s dog. Brendan and Marta tell him that’s nice and let him go away to care for this living being. All things considered, Zeus may be safer with Jacko than any of the qualified medics.
