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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 204837" data-attributes="member: 23">Episodes 281-285   (...continued)Naturally, the ritual of Rebecca saying goodbye to Alan takes place on the beach. The staging of it has a pleasingly cinematic edge to it by beginning with the characters simply walking while we hear their voiceovers.<img src="https://i.vgy.me/qiDrjB.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://i.vgy.me/9zDSfu.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />It’s apparent these voiceovers are different to those we are used to. This isn’t dialogue replacement, nor are  we hearing the characters’ thoughts. Instead we are watching them walking up to the conversation that’s already taking place. Rather like the layered dialogue over Morag’s vicious housewarming speech, the screen time is being used efficiently and creatively to give us two scenes in one. To speed things up without feeling hurried.Appropriately, the intimate “service” attended by Rebecca, Donald and Bobby has a further reading from Alan’s book, read by Donald<img src="https://i.vgy.me/fCWhaj.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />All these snippets of the book we’ve heard or seen over the past months have been most tantalising. This is one book I wish had been published as a tie-in to the series.Rebecca also gives an impromptu poetry reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 60, and when she freezes and forgets her line, Bobby steps in to help by finishing off the poem she remembered studying for their HSC. The final line which references “his cruel hand” immediately made me think of how Bobby, Alan and Rebecca have all viewed Donald at times. The brutal authority figure. I’m not sure if this is intentional (it actually refers to time itself, and the inevitability of death), but I found it quite  powerful to think of the shared love/hate relationship that the three of them have had with their natural father and the healing that continues to happen.In a nice touch, the camera moves past Rebecca quoting Shakespeare and towards a tiny figure above the sand dunes to find an observer watching with passive bitterness:<img src="https://i.vgy.me/DvSoRF.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://i.vgy.me/NKfuzm.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://i.vgy.me/cQJjfP.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://i.vgy.me/6XoecH.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />On returning home to Nigel, Morag's scathing synopsis of the scene made me laugh out loud not only for being devoid of reverence or sentiment but also for being an accurate account the scene from her viewpoint:Just as Celia’s treatment of her tenants piqued Nigel’s curiosity, so does Morag’s antipathy towards Bobby. There’s even a lighthearted moment where he tells the thunderous Morag that she and Celia are similar in having the Stewart stubbornness (“You should see her face”, laughed Roo. “I can hear it”, quipped Nigel).As with the Celia situation, Nigel does some low-key sleuthing about Morag by speaking to two of her siblings (I love how he is on such good terms with all three of them. Something only he and Roo have in common). Alf tells Nigel about Morag’s nickname of Bugsy and gives us a picture of a very different young woman:Celia gives us more Bellingham background when asked what happened with her and Richard:Thinking he’s put the pieces together, Nigel chooses to confront Morag. An electrical storm rages outside, and unknown to him she is already tearfully reflective from watching the ceremony on the beach earlier:<img src="https://i.vgy.me/j0j0EV.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />He finds her sitting in the dark and offers are some entertainment:<img src="https://i.vgy.me/e3Cqm0.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://i.vgy.me/PQrCoK.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://i.vgy.me/kZnywx.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://i.vgy.me/YzL014.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://i.vgy.me/pPxv9V.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />It's a cracking scene. Rich, dark and powerful. And it further fleshes Morag out as a tragic, misunderstood creature.  Cornelia Frances gives a terrific performance. It's big and theatrical, but stays the right side of camp. Interesting that the word "abortion" still seems to be boycotted. A curious choice considering  Morag explicitly saying moments earlier that Richard had wanted her to "kill" the baby.With Morag’s complete breakdown, shouting and crying and confessing (shades of Patricia Hamilton and Matt Kennedy), she is at her most vulnerable. By morning she has recovered enough to make Nigel pay for his treachery. In a darkly twisted act, she stands silently watching as her blind companion comes downstairs to find almost every item the furniture strewn across the room. He bumps into things, trips and falls. And while he calls out, knowing she is there, she continues to observe with what looks like cold detachment. It’s arguably her lowest act yet. And I loved it.<img src="https://i.vgy.me/cufCJO.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://i.vgy.me/3dY57j.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />...continued</blockquote>

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