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An episode that seemed to have the theme of 'anxious mothers' through it. Not only with Lexie giving birth, but also with Nancy's concern about her son's wife-beating, and with Meg's worry about Marty's disappearance while fighting the bush fire.
Most of the action seemed to focus on Lexie and the birth, and after so many dull and unmemorable episodes, this was certainly welcome. Overall the birth scenes were very effective, making me feel quite emotional at more than one point. I suspect a lot of this was thanks to a slightly different way of handling it. Badly-chosen cheesy music did not drown out the dialogue - in fact background music was almost non-existent, and the actresses were simply left to get on with acting. There were some excellent performances, particularly Lexie, who hadn't had much to do except rant and moan for ages. When she has decent material (rather than moaning all the time) I feel she's not a bad actress at all, and her performance here was very moving. Even Alice was surprisingly good, in her calm midwife role (in between comments about delivering calves). As the birth commenced, the reactions of the key players was interesting and intelligently handled, both by the writers and the cast. Merle was excited, asking questions about the "bub", while Kath quietly cried to herself, Lori got hysterical, and Rita wrestled with her reluctance to watch the birth and her loyalty as a friend to Lexie. Amid the drama, the saddest line came from Merle, when Kath talked about her having her own baby. "I can't have one," she said. "They fixed it so's I couldn't." On the whole an excellent bit of drama.
As for the rest of the episode, everything else seemed to pale into insignificance. I think we may have seen a 'first' for Prisoner - Rodney was struck on the back of the head and wasn’t rendered instantly unconscious. However, a few seconds later he took one look at the spawning Lexie and passed out all by himself.
Following Nancy's suspicions about Peet-ha, Meg went into her classic social-worker role and trotted off to the house, like Julie Andrews with too much hair mousse. Danielle explained her black eye as a close encounter with a clothes line post. Presumably a fight over who was the better actress. Ann-the-(Wo)Man was discussing her relationship now that she'd heard about Dan-the-Man and Suzy-the-Floozy (or whatever her name was). I think I'd have been far more disturbed by the alarmingly loud crickets that appear to have moved into her living room. And after the unnaturally loud fly heard recently in Wentworth, it might be worth checking whether any toxic nuclear waste had been spilled in the vicinity.
But most amusing bit of the lot had to be the clothes which were going to the people at the bush fires. After all, when you've lost your house and belongings, are suffering from smoke inhalation or the elements, what you really need is a good spangly dress, a frilly hat and some plastic bead necklaces to cheer you up. I can only assume the items were donated by the local drag queen network.
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