At the beginning of the 7th episode, Maggie Cabbott (Rachelle Lefevre) emerges from the water and swims back to the boat. She remembers the necklace being ripped from her neck and kicking Tom (Matt Whelan) in the face. Maggie quickly works to cover up her wounds while remembering her fight with Tom. When she finishes, she drives the boat back to land and remembers Tom telling her that they cannot leave the $160 million. Kath Hines (Tandi Wright) stops by Esther’s room and finds the evidence she has taped to the wall. She looks at the computer and learns about Stuart talking about a potential buyer for Pelorus Salmon. Esther (Emily Piggford) enters the room and catches Kath snooping around so she quickly shuts the computer.

They exchange warnings of criminal charges before Esther dismisses Kath from her room. Kath wants to know what she is doing there and admits she has been defending her all along. She isn’t sure why and believes Esther likes upsetting people. Esther says it would make her happy to find the Cabbotts’s missing money and she thinks Tom was involved. Maggie spots Jack (Matt Nable) outside and quickly shuts the curtain so he can’t see her. She rushes to collect her belongings and leave while remembering Zoe (Anna-Maree Thomas) saying she will be killed if she can’t pay. As she tries to leave, she runs into Hannah (Morgana O’Reilly) who wants to make sure everything is okay. Maggie says she is okay before Hannah asks her if she would like to help them do some baking for the fundraiser tomorrow.

Maggie says she can’t because she is going to run some errands. Kath and Esther talk about Tom and whether or not he would steal from his family. Kath says it was Tom’s money but Esther says his father doesn’t see it that way. Kath offers to help since she was an award-winning journalist for 11 years before she got sucked into the black hole of management. Esther explains she created an email that was one letter away from Stuart’s and didn’t hack anything. Kath explains it is a dead-end because Sandy doesn’t have anything except idle gossip. Seconds later, Jack stops his car to watch Pania (Vanessa Rare) play with her dog. Jack approaches her and Pania quickly realizes he has something to tell her.

He apologizes and tells her that he found Ryan’s body. Pania breaks down, sobs, and blames Jack and Pilau (Nikki Si’ulepa) for Ryan’s death. She doesn’t believe Ryan would’ve given up or done this to her. Jack is forced to comfort her. Next, Maggie visits Stuart (Peter Elliott) to tell him she needs to pull $330,000 out of the business today. He doesn’t think he can do that but Maggie says she doesn’t have time for this and needs it to happy quickly. Stuart tries to figure out what is wrong but Maggie only says she wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t desperate. He agrees to help but would like to know what the money is for but Maggie rushes out of the room without telling him. Jack goes to the tavern and finds Stuart trying to deal with a belligerent Annette (Sara Wiseman).

When Jack approaches Annette, she says the lies hurt and she can’t with it any longer. Jack takes the broken bottle from her because she says she is tired. Jack pleads with her to go home and she leaves with Stuart and her son moments later. Maggie takes her money to the casino and trades it in for chips. Meanwhile, Kath and Esther go through Tom’s finances and talk about the $876,000 he spent on the boat. Esther says she is looking for anything unusual such as large payments to small companies or local companies she has never heard of. They scour through the paperwork associated with the financial transactions until Kath finds one she believes is wrong. She picks up the phone and calls Malcolm to ask him if he has started doing cash jobs.

She asks him if Tom ever paid him in cash. When that call ends, they visit the bank where Kath speaks to Brendan (Emmett Skilton) who she knows. She reminds Brendan about the times she helped him before asking him about Tom withdrawing $39,000 on March 7 of last year. Esther and Kath want him to look for any deposits of the same amount or a bit less around that time. Brendan is worried he could lose his job but he doesn’t want Emily and his mom to find out what he has done either. Brendan searches for deposits and finds that someone deposited just under $39,000 on the 10th. They push until Brendan tells them that Davy Jennings (Stephen Ure) made the deposit.

Maggie goes to Mitch’s place and Lucas (Shaquille Stirling) says his mother will be glad to see her. She goes inside and talks to Mitch Elliott (Michelle Leuthart) about Tom’s baby. Zoe is escorted in while Maggie begins pulling the casino chips and tokens out of her purse and placing them on the counter. Maggie tells Mitch that she can take them to the casino and cash them in. And, they’ll be able to walk away with the money clean as the driven snow. Maggie tells her to do it soon before they change out the chips. Mitch tells Zoe she never wants to see or hear from her again and Zoe agrees with that. She is given her bag before she leaves with Maggie. Zoe wants a ticket to Australia but Maggie tells her she is going to take her home.

Maggie wants Zoe to stick around for the baby and so she won’t break Jack’s heart. Zoe gets out so she can walk to the airport because the baby will be better off without her. She talks about being haunted by the one bad thing she did and says she needs a fresh start somewhere else. Maggie asks Zoe where she wants to go to in Australia before Zoe gives her a big hug. She tells Maggie not to get mushy because it is only the Gold Coast. Kath and Esther visit Davy Jennings and asks him about Tom Cabbott but Davy claims he never met him. He is asked about the $39,000 and he claims Mother Goose gave him the money. He laughs and says that is the name of the company that bought his hut out in Matai Bay.

When they leave, Esther and Kath discuss the hut being locked up due to the Aroha situation. Kath says it looked like someone was planning for the zombie apocalypse but Esther believes it might’ve been designed for someone lost at sea. Kath isn’t sure about that. Maggie goes back down to the dock and speaks to Jack who reveals they’ve found something out in the Sounds. She thinks it has something to do with Tom but Jack says it is Pania’s son Ryan. Jack tells her about Jack going into the bush several years after he left prison and says they need to talk. They get on the boat and Jack tells her about Ryan’s gunshot wound. Maggie asks who did it but Jack explains that every suicide gets investigated.

Jack admits he believes someone was with Ryan when he died and he thinks it might’ve been Tom. He tells Maggie he believes Tom faked his own death. Maggie tells him that Tom was alive until this morning and she believes she killed him. They get into an argument after Maggie tells Jack about the $160 million scheme. Jack isn’t happy that Maggie let all of the volunteers risk their lives while she sat around and pretended like Jack was missing. She asks him if they should be doing this at the police station but Jack says he isn’t going to arrest her. He believes Maggie was fighting for her life and she has the wounds to prove it. Maggie tells him he can’t let her walk away before Jack asks her if she was with Tom when Ryan was shot.

Jack doesn’t want the town to be dragged through another murder investigation because the damage has already been done. Jack doesn’t think they’ll ever find Tom’s body and says all of the search efforts were for her. Jack warns her not to do or say anything. Kath tells Esther she doesn’t understand why Tom would fake his own death but Esther believes he did it to spend the money he stole. Esther discusses her theory but Kath isn’t sure she is right. Kath offers to take her to the cabin by boat but Esther doesn’t like the water so she doesn’t want to travel by boat. They go to the docks and Kath encourages Esther to get onto the boat with her. Pilau arrives at the police station and tells Jack that Ryan’s case just isn’t going away.

She thinks Ryan wasn’t able to deal with his guilt and she accuses Jack of telling the forensics team to look the other way. Meanwhile, Maggie sits around and thinks about her time with Tom. He confesses he likes the part of dying because his father won’t be able to come after him and he’ll be able to spend the money however he wants but Maggie reminds him it is their money. He tells her she knows everything about him. Maggie returns to Jack to tell him she saw Zoe. She explains that Zoe was in trouble but she helped her out. Meanwhile, Tracy (Emma Fenton) tells Hannah that Maggie has been after Jack from the beginning but Hannah doesn’t believe that.

Kath enters and listens as Hannah tells her friend about everything they did to try to have a baby together. Jack complains about Maggie not telling him about the trouble his daughter had gotten herself into. Maggie agrees to show him the DNA results and Jack isn’t happy she hid those as well. She says she was betrayed and Tom got what she wanted the most with Zoe. When she told him, Tom didn’t even care. Jack admits she didn’t either. Maggie says she has been making one mistake after another and her mistake cost two lives. She wonders how she is supposed to live with that but Jack says Ryan’s death isn’t his fault. Jack says he was there on the night Aroha died and was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. In a flashback, we see that Jack spent the night with Annette.

He also says they were just a couple of kids fooling around. While kissing Annette, Jack notices Zoe and wonders what she is doing there. We see a fight between a young Zoe (Joni Watson) and Aroha (Maioro Iti) about Ryan. Zoe bashed and killed her. Aroha’s screams stopped Jack and Annette’s romance. Jack breaks down and tells Maggie that Zoe killed Aroha and he covered it up. Maggie can’t believe Jack let Ryan go to jail and can still look at Pania after all of these years. Jack says he had to protect his daughter but admits he can’t justify any of these. He goes on to say that Detective Pilau wouldn’t stop and then it was too late. Maggie realizes she and Tom caused Ryan’s death but Jack says he killed that boy a long time ago.

He says you can’t turn back what you’ve done and have to try to make amends. Tom returns to land and steals food near a tent.

 

The Sounds Review

While not my favorite show this year, I am glad The Sounds is getting better near the end of the season. I am sure a lot of people will hate it but I’d watch almost anything as long as Matt Nable is in it. At the very least, the show hasn’t been afraid to take chances and that was very evident this episode. We got several twists and turns with Jack confessing that his daughter killed Aroha and he let Ryan go down for it.

In addition to that, Tom is still alive and that should lead to a very interesting season finale. I’ll also admit that the Esther character was more tolerable this episode because she showed she was human and vulnerable. This was probably the best episode of the season and I hate that the others couldn’t keep up the pace. I am not yet sure if The Sounds has been worth my time. I’ll have to wait until I watch the finale to decide. This episode scores a 7.5 out of 10. You can find past recaps of The Sounds on Reel Mockery.