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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 444765" data-attributes="member: 23">Shootin’ Through / Pig In A Poke / Did She Fall? / Love’s Labour LostcontinuedThere has been a significant shift in character dynamics during these eight episodes, with a whole lot of soapy goings on.For a start, there's been the seemingly-endless saga of the Joneses’ useless farm hand, Skye, who is more concerned with their auras than the practicalities of running a farm (we know she’s a nut because she is said to drink peppermint tea. How times have changed). She also tries to instigate a threesome with Molly and Brendan because the stars tell her so. In the end, she settles for planting a kiss on Molly’s mouth and leaving… only for them to find she has taken, among other things, Brendan’s beloved Toby jug and Doris’s “night light” (the chandelier, thankfully retrieved by Bob when Skye sells it to his wife). With Brendan going soppy over children at the hospital (first the two boys he brings home, then the baby who is critically ill with tetanus) he becomes broody and decides it’s time for him and Molly to try for a baby. Molly swooning at his change of heart doesn’t feel particularly progressive, but we sense there is at least an understanding between them. Vicky, meanwhile, has taken up with a new man, Peter Juillet. Not only is he French (le gasp), he is also significantly older… and married. Vicky moves into a flat with him, as Shirley watches helplessly, trying to feign a supportive smile and tone so as not to ruin their relationship. Simon is less diplomatic, visiting her at the flat to check she’s OK, but ending up bellowing at her and grasping her by the shoulder to tell her how unreasonable and out of character she is being. But it’s the nuances of this story that really sell it beyond the obvious. The detail of Peter not only being unsupportive, but of also being a lesser country vet is subtly present throughout. Vicky is annoyed when Peter undermines her by taking over on a call where he’d just tagged along with her, and she chastises him for immunising an animal in the rump because it means it can now no longer be sold for food, which will cost the farmer money (he should, she tells him, have injected it in the brisket. This is educational TV). This situation is flipped on another visit where he is about to de-horn a goat too high, prompting her to snatch the tool off him and do it herself.The final straw comes his family is coming to Australia and he plans to move them all in with Vicky and him (yet another allusion to potential threesomes). Back at the homestead, Frank and Shirley have officially become an item. There’s an intimate scene between them where she explains in softly spoken tones why she was too frightened to let him in and all that. I have to say it didn’t sell me completely. She was unnecessarily a bit of a bitch to him for most of Season One and early Season Two. Not that this spoils where they are now, but it felt like an attempt to explain something where a simple apology would have been more effective. Then comes Shirley’s pregnancy scare, which it has to be said is mostly played for laughs (and all the better for it). There are some fun scenes of local gossips (including Esme) commenting on her glowing condition, and watching knowingly. Or Shirley eating a Mars bar/pickled onion combo at her desk while trying to hide it (the scene ends with her dunking the bar in the pickle juice and suckling on it while looking as though she’s in heaven). Terence examines Shirley and estimates her to be fourteen weeks, which Shirley feels is impossible.Given Shirley’s snacking throughout Season Two, I really thought it was going to be some kind of indigestion, but then came the reveal that it was a tumour (honestly, this is the second time in this run that Terence has misdiagnosed a tumour), leading to surgery for Shirley. She insists on the surgery being done in Wandin Valley, so Terence removes the tumour and sends it for analysis, but he is certain it is benign and - since he clearly never makes any wrong conclusions - Brendan phones up local telegraph, switchboard operator Bev, to spread the word. Counting chickens is a sport in Wandin Valley.Frank’s reaction to Shirley’s “pregnancy” and illness makes it. On thinking they’re having a baby, he is delighted and proposes (he has to, he points out, but he also wants to). Then he and Shirley are so careful around one another when her tumour is revealed (naturally, Terence and Simon go round telling Frank and Vicky, and ethics be damned). She hadn’t wanted to tell him because of the association of his wife who had died from cancer, but he is determined to support her through it. He still wants to marry her, he says, and he buys her a present… a five year diary, so that she can write about her adventures as Mrs Frank Gilroy. It’s note perfect.</blockquote>

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