Episode 9 begins with Mack/McKenzie Leigh (Rachel Griffiths) and Lima (Robbie Magasiva) making lunch plans while Jules Varma (Rima Te Wiata) ostensibly hangs Valentine decorations. After inquiring about the decorations, Mack realizes the holiday has completely slipped her mind.
Tui (Ariana Osborne) appears to be even less enthused about the holiday than Mack when she joins Toby (Quinn Ashton) and Noam Leigh (Angus Stevens) for breakfast. There is a brief discussion about the day’s agenda before Noam asks Tui to the movies. Although this approached in a casual way, it’s suggested that he’s interested in pursuing it differently.
Cherry (Gemma-Jayde Naidoo) is no more enthused about the holiday but attributes her distaste to the desire for meaningful eye contact. Amethyst (Moana Johnson) apparently not only enjoys eye contact but claims to get better tips because of it. Holiday talk is immediately sidelined when Simon (Jordan Blaikie) shows up with gifts in hand and claims he’s received Cherry’s text and feels the same way. After a slight bit of confusion, it is revealed that the text was Jules’s debacle attempt at a holiday promotion. After canceling her lunch plans with Lima, she sets out to correct things, while Deziyah (Danielle Cormack) tries to convince her to use the situation to their advantage.
Deziyah realizes doing so will be much harder than she thought when Farmer Carl (Andrew Munro) shows up to profess his love for Lolly (Florence Hartigan). When Lolly agrees to blindly run off with him to paradise, Mack steps in. This leads to a huge debate but ends up with Mack accidentally hurting Lolly’s feelings by suggesting she is emotionally vulnerable. Even though Mack canceled her lunch date with Lima, he tells her that he’s at least going to bring her lunch. Given that Carl’s wife has just called, his announcement couldn’t have come at a better time. Mack leaves Deziyah to deal with.
Mack stages her own romantic Valentine entanglement for Lima that nearly ends up getting cut short after she learns that Toby’s outgoing has been canceled due to a failing air conditioner. Thinking quickly on her feet, Mack instead calls Tui and asks her and Noam to pick him up. Tui doesn’t even think twice about it, but it also means dragging him along to the movies with her and Noam.
Deziyah’s situation spins further out of control when PCs Marie (Donna Brookbanks) and Vincent (Barnie Duncan) show up to investigate the disturbing of peace claims. Deziyah actually has a solution for this problem when Jules mentions that Sharon (Kura Forrester) just wants to know that her complaints are being heard.
While Deziyah stages for the officers to publically issue them a ticket, Mack and Lima’s conversation gets serious when he tells Mack how impressed he is with the way she is handling everything. He says that he was a total wreck when his wife left him.
At the movies, Tui begins to suspect that Noam is interested in a different type of relationship with her. It takes her dropping hints about Toby and Noam feeling like her brothers before he gets the message but when he does, he doesn’t waste any time leaving her and Noam at the movie to join his friends at the beach. Not long after Noam leaves, Toby begins to choke.
Mack is in bed with Lima when she learns of the incident, but immediately races over to the cinema. The next few scenes indicate that Toby spends some time in the hospital but ultimately turns out to be fine. He is eventually allowed to return home where Jules and Lima are hovering around like mother hens. The extra attentiveness combined with the stress causes her to eventually blow up on them. As for Tui, she tells her that she needs to move out. Noam doesn’t appear to be handling the situation much better and even blames himself for the incident.
The episode ends on an even worse note for Mack when Rob Leigh’s (Martin Henderson) return causes her to seemingly realize just how much she and Noam need him.
Madam Review
This was a pretty decent episode. It would have been truly dark if Toby had died. I was almost hoping for it, no offense to him or the actor portraying him. I would have just liked to see the series take that much darker turn. Other than that, I am beginning to sense the return of the family patriarch, which should create some very awkward neighborly interactions. All that said, I did feel it was unnecessary for Mack to blow up on Jules and Tui the way she did. I’d give this episode a 6 out of 10 because it did such a great job of setting up for the next one.
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