The episode begins with Jacs Gould (Alice Englert) and Kel Summer (Mia Artemis) at what appears to be a rave. It isn’t long before Jacs finds herself in the hallway making out with CJ (Ezekiel Simat). After Kel anxiously interrupts with the request to return home, the trio finds themselves back at what appears to be Jacs and Kel’s house. Kel remains anxious as she texts someone while CJ and Jacs pick up where they left off from the club. It isn’t long before they retire to the upstairs bedroom, but before doing so, Kel tells her goodbye as if she is going away for good. The following morning, Jacs is woken by CJ with the news of the downstairs floor being wet. Jacs incorrectly assumes the washing machine to be the culprit but soon learns this isn’t the case. After realizing that Kel’s bed appears that it hasn’t been slept in, the footage abruptly cuts to a black screen.
The story then appears to skip ahead with Jacs at a photography exposition. Shortly after this, Suzanna (Long Cooper Tang) announces Jacs as the winner and welcomes her to the stage for a speech. Jacs already appears as a bit of a mess and chugging beers certainly doesn’t help her speech, although she’s not yet to the point of slurring. She does appear to have an admirer, Tom (Fabian McCallum) amongst the crowd but her later meeting with him goes just as badly.
Jacs’ mood hasn’t improved the following day as she gathers her luggage for what appears to be an upcoming trip. Later on the train, she removes Kel’s phone from an evidence bag and after charging it, checks the message log. There is nearly an entire page of deleted messages and two, received within 1 minute of each other, where the sender appears to be apologizing for hurting her. Jacs attempts to call the sender but does not receive a response.
After being dropped off in a neighborhood, Jacs spends several minutes making her way to her mother, Kathy’s (Essie Davis) house. As brief and awkward as their reunion is, Kathy’s dress and the ensuing conversation reveal that Jacs has returned home to attend Kel’s funeral. Jacs clearly isn’t properly dressed for the event and only grows frustrated with Kathy’s offers of a dress and makeup. After a bit of stewing in her old room, Jacs finds herself in the garage where she goes through some of her old photography work. Most are photos of Kel but Jacs does find a brief home video that she struggles to watch.
Jacs shares the news of winning the expo with Kathy while they drive to Kel’s funeral. Although Kathy appears to be happy for her, after learning that the win didn’t come with any money, she tells Jacs that she hopes she one day finds her a rich husband. They even share a long sentimental hug after arriving at the event. The event itself basically plays out in slow motion, with Jacs lingering in the background, watching. At one point she does turn her attention back to Kel’s phone to ask the identity of the person Kel was texting with.
During the funeral, Jacs shares a brief conversation with Jai (David Howell), where they trade stories about their lives. At one point, he jokes about how nice it is to see someone from their hometown with more aspiration to be something other than a plumber. She gets a kick out of this but is quick to point out that she isn’t making any money. Jacs’ second encounter isn’t as pleasant, as it involves returning the evidence to Kel’s mother, Val (Victoria Haralabidou). Val offers to let Jacs keep the earrings but she refuses. Jacs does say that she would be happy to swap her last moment with Kel because hers wasn’t the best. This ultimately leads to Jacs learning that Val hadn’t seen Kel three months prior to the death.
Much later that night, Jacs visits a drained public pool, which appears to be a popular hangout for the local youth because there is already a procession of activity going on. Despite this, Jacs’ attention is drawn to the lone guy sitting in the stands with his head down, Angus (Thomas Weatherall). Their ensuing conversation suggests Angus is a close friend of hers and Kels. He also claims he couldn’t bring himself to attend the funeral which could be true because it doesn’t take him long to become emotional. After learning that he hadn’t been seeing Kel in town any more than normal, she tells him about the text messages and her theory that Kel was secretly seeing someone.
After Angus leaves, Jacs learns from Jai that Kel was seeing someone. He describes him as a surfer but that appears to be all he can provide. A few beers later and the two of them end up in each other’s arms.
The episode ends with Jacs finally receiving a response from the blocker messenger on Kel’s phone. He tells her to never contact him again, which for some reason causes Jacs to remember the morning she found Kel dead in the tub. This explains the flooding downstairs. It is also revealed that Jacs photographed Kel’s death. These were the photos she used to win the exhibit.
Exposure Review
Being the first episode and so short, I don’t feel that it would be fair to be overcritical. That said, I did feel that the episode essentially did what a premier should do. It laid out all the characters, introduced the plot, and threw in a few subplots. I always consider a shorter runtime a plus as it helps limit filler/fluff content and that shows big time with this series. Although there were only a few time jumps, they were slightly confusing as was some of the transitioning from scene to scene and character to character. This could be attributed to the shorter runtime or maybe poor editing.
As for the characters and plot, I am intrigued enough to continue watching. I found the ending especially creeping with the ending credits rolling to the sound of dripping bath water. Kel’s death could be considered somewhat confusing because there is no blood in the tub. If she drowned herself, could she have floated above the surface as she was discovered? Why was she fully dressed? I’d give the episode a 5.6 out of 10.
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