Valentine’s Day is here. Hooray. St Valentine was, of course, the patron saint of smugness. His day stands as a capitalist, commercial reminder of the procreative imperative. Nothing says “get off your arse and see to it that the human race is sustained for another generation” like an explosion of pink and of saccharine sentiment in all the shops and on the Internet. Here's Tracey Cox pedantically telling you how to make that special first date count on AOL Lifestyle. You wouldn't want to move the salt over that invisible barrier too early on in the relationship - that could be disastrous. You might get chlamydia.
If you don't got a date then get one. Thus sprake the marketing men and women and the email spammers who are tasked with normalising society and making sure we all look the same and think the same unthreatening thoughts. Remember if you don't couple up and then have at least two children, then you are contributing to a population decline. Valentine's Day is a timely reminder from those who are happily doing their bit to those of us who have been less than proactive on the fecundity front. The whole business seems a bit pointless and tragic what with the end of the world and all.
Anyway, since it is Valentine's Day, I thought about theming my blog. I considered putting a poll in to see who'd be the best Neighbours character to go on a Valentine's Date with. However, it turns out that they’re all ad-powered and not actually that good. So I'd have ended up with loads of pop-ups and a not-very-meaningful result. I could only put three responses in, so would have been forced to narrow the field to a ludicrous degree. Dividing the survey up into men and women would also have been a problem. So, I’ll just ask outright and resign myself to not knowing the result:
Which Neighbours character would you least hate to be your Valentine?
For simplicity’s sake, I’ll limit the field to present characters. I’ll warn you now not to predicate your choice solely on looks. Elle Robinson is very good looking, but can you imagine sitting across a table from her in a fancy restaurant? You’d crack a great joke and she’d look puzzled and constipated, then you’d say something really intelligent and profound and she’d look ... puzzled and constipated. Also if, heaven forbid, she were to fall desperately ill, you could never be absolutely sure that she wasn’t faking it. By the same token, Ned ‘Boringbelly’ Parker is so very, very dull. Sure, he's got the looks, but has he got the touch?
You’d also have to be very careful in ending the relationship, because if you were to break up with him or her, one or other of you would certainly be pregnant.
Here's my choice: I'd go out with Sky. Sure, she's got a baby and she's not sure which of two brothers is the father, but that's not a big deal when you consider the overpowering argument that "we like the same stuff". I would have chosen Pepper, but she's a little too girly and silly and I wouldn't want to face the wrath of Zeke. He creeps me out. The chief problem I foresee in my relationship with Sky would be that, if love is quantifiable, and it is, she would only love me 56%. Mind you, she might let me play with her cuddly Totoro in recompense for the fact that she could never love me as I loved her. According to that love calculator, Lou Carpenter would love Nosey Rosie a staggering 91%. She's in there.
By the way, the answer to yesterday's cryptic clue was, of course, Erinsborough's favourite drink: "Tazzle".
Neighbours - 06/02/07
Previouslys: Guy and Katya and the silver foil; Will and the old man; Katya and Will discussing specialist treatment for Carmella.
The episode title is "Wholly Trinity" which is, of course, a pun on the theological concept of the tripartite God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The pun is actually an astute ontological one; although God comprises three distinct facets of creator, flesh and logos, He remains a monolithic entity: One God. This duality absorbs St John the Apostle for the opening part of his gospel ("In the beginning was the Word ... etc") and it is the notion that Ælfric worried that the common man would wrestle with after he had translated the Bible into the Anglo-Saxon demotic. I couldn't find an online text of his wonderful preface to his translation of Genesis, but think it is worth citing at length nonetheless. The translation from Old English is my own, so I apologise for any inaccuracies, ugliness or clunkiness:
"We say above that the book [Genesis] is very deep to understand spiritually and we will not write any more except the bare narrative. Then it seems to the unlearned priest that all the sense may be locked in that simple narrative; but it is very far from that. The book is called ‘Genesis,’ that is ‘the book of origins’ because it is the first of the books and it speaks about every origin but it is does not speak about the creation of the Angels. It begins thus: “In principio creauit deus celum et terrum” and that is in English “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.” It was truly so done, that God Almighty in the beginning made creation when he wanted to. Nevertheless, according to the spiritual sense, that beginning is as Christ said to the Jews: “I am the beginning who speak before you.” Through this beginning God the Father created Heaven and Earth, because he created all creatures through the Son, he who was always born to him, bringing wisdom to the wise Father.
Next, there stands in the book in the first verse, “Et spiritus dei farebatus super aquas,” that is, in English, “And God’s spirit was borne over the water.” God’s spirit is the Holy Ghost, through which the Father gave life to all creatures that he created through the Son, and the Holy Ghost goes through the hearts of men and he gives to us forgiveness of sins, first through the baptism and after through penance; and if anybody scorns the forgiveness which the Holy Ghost gives, then his sin is always unforgiveable through eternity. Next, this Holy Trinity is revealed in this book as it is in the word that God spoke: “Let us make man in our image.” When he said “Let us make” is the Trinity revealed; when he said “in our image” is the true unity revealed; he did not say in the plural “in our images” but in the singular “in our image.” Afterwards, there came three Angels to Abraham and he spoke to them all three as one. How did the blood of Abel cry out to God except as each man’s misdeeds accuse him to God without words? By these small examples one may understand how deep the book is in a spiritual sense, although it may be written with simple words. Again, Joseph, who was sold into Egypt and rescued the people from the great famine, had the tokening of Christ, who was sold into death for us and rescued us from the eternal hunger of the torment of Hell."
Three-as-one, both a holy and a wholly Trinity. I very much doubt that that's what the Neighbours writers had in mind when they titled the episode, however. Back to our favourite show:
Ext. Garage. Will is talking on his mobile phone. He wants an advance of the funds. He has made a deal, we can safely suppose, to secure finance for Carmella's operation. Cut to Pepper. She is talking to her mother at the garage. They're playing that "Don't Look Back" song on the radio! I haven't heard it for ages: "Don't look back / Nothing's ever easy / If you stay on track / Something's going to find you!" Pepper's Mum is arranging to meet up with her with Steiger in the Scarlet Bar. Pepper is hopeful that this means that her parents are getting back together. Exit Pepper. Enter Janae. Janae is wearing pink overalls. She doesn't think it does any harm to emphasise the fact that this is an all-female garage. The overalls highlight their femininity without being overtly sexual. The ex-Mrs Steiger looks exasperatedly amused. She tells Janae either to go and change into blue overalls or go home and miss a half-day's wages.
House of Hotties. All the residents are gathered in the kitchen. They are discussing Carmella's predicament. Will emphasises that "time is of the essence". Katya told him that the decision to have surgery needed to be taken in a matter of days. They discuss fundraising issues. I wonder why Mrs Corleone wouldn't step in to help her daughter? Rosetta says "No way I'm asking Mum for the money." O...kay. Why not? Frazer tells the assembly that he has a tip on a race "this arvo". But they'd need to raise a stake. Will takes off his watch. Frazer thought that the watch was a cheap Thai knock-off. It isn't.
Garage. Janae is wearing blue overalls again. She's sweeping up. "G'die sweetheart," says a middle-aged man. It transpires that his name is Rex and that he owns a garage called "Black Stallion" which is in direct competition with the one where Janae works. He's been losing business to them. Janae posits that this is because her boss is a great mechanic. Rex doesn't think so. He thinks that it has a lot to do with the fact that Janae started working there. He wants to poach her, promising that he wouldn't make her sweep the floors at his place. He writes something on the back of a business card and shows it to Janae. "That would be your starting salary," he tells her. "What? Per fortnight?" I thought that a salary was paid monthly. "No," says Rex impressively, "per week." Janae's jaw drops. Basically, the pay-rate is double what she thought. Doesn't sound jaw-droppingly impressive to me. And what sort of training package will he offer? I think that this will prove to be a poisoned chalice.
General Store. Ned, Rachel, Zeke. Ned is pointing at Rachel and Zeke challenges him to what can only be described as a finger duel. As they parry and thrust at one another, Katya enters from outside, and Guy comes into shot from the counter with a tray of milkshakes. He gives Zeke a chocolate milkshake, and Rachel a vanilla. For Ned he has a "manly strawberry." He's humouring Ned. There's nothing whatever that's "manly" about strawberries. He offers to get something for Katya, pretending to remember her favourite drink from their days at nursing college together. What was it she liked - ah yes "a hit." He's referring to her drug addiction. He lets her off the hook by qualifying it with "of caffeine". He trots off to get her a double espresso. Guy is one of those "centres of evil" I mentioned the other day. Basically, he's Guy of Gisbourne. Zeke tells Katya that Guy has offered to bowl a few at him in the nets. I'm furious - he's still practising his cricket skills after I expressly asked him not to! I suppose it doesn't matter so much since we gave the Aussies a drubbing in the One Day Series. By rights, they should give us the Ashes back now, since we are clearly the superior cricketing nation. Rachel asks Katya if it's true that she "almost got kicked out of nurses' college". Katya looks uneasy. She asks Ned if she can have a word with him and leads him outside. She asks him to leave the General Store and take Rachel and Zeke with him. He does so. Guy returns with the coffee. Katya warns him to stay away from her family and tells him "if you don't tell the cops, I will." It's about time. The longer she kowtows to his blackmailing the worse it will get. Her secret is out, and she has to accept it. Pandering to Guy is doing no good at all.
Kinski Residence. Rachel and Bree. "Guy is really cool," opines Rachel. Understandably, Bree doesn't care. She tells Rachel that she is changing her name. It's not like Janelle is her birth mother and "Timmins," she holds, "is not exactly a badge of honour." Rachel wonders if this has anything to do with what Stingray said at the inept intervention they organised. Bree insists that it doesn't. "Bree Baxter," Rachel muses. Anne Baxter is, of course, the real Bree Timmins; the baby with whom Bree was exchanged shortly after her birth. Bree doesn't want to take the name 'Baxter' because "the Baxters are horrible" and she doesn't want to be associated with them. She tells Rachel that the system of naming children is inherently unfair and that a system whereby kids are given "numbers or something until they're old enough to name themselves" should be instituted. Bree has decided to call herself 'Trinity Black'. I roll my eyes. Oh, puh-leeze. The Wachowskis were so-last-century. Nobody but nobody thinks The Matrix is cool anymore. Rachel looks nonplussed.
Hospital. Carmella and a nun. The nun's name is Sister Josephine. Carmella thinks that God wants her back and that the facial scarring was His way of telling her. Sister Josephine doesn't think so. I wouldn't be so sure - He does work in mysterious ways that passeth all human understanding and, if you look at his MO through the ages, He can be very cruel. If Job had said to Sister Josephine, "All these afflictions! I think God is testing the strength of my faith!" would she likewise have looked kindly and dissuaded the notion? Or if, back in Moses' day, the Pharaoh had observed that "The deaths of all of our innocent first-born children must be God's way of telling me something," presumably, what she's just told Carmella would still stand. Anyhow, there's no place for her in the convent. It's not a place where you can escape from the tribulations of the real world. Exit Sister Josephine. Enter Rosetta. "What did she want?" asks Rosetta with an expression of extreme distaste. Carmella is distraught.
Scarlet Bar. Steiger and Mrs Steiger. I learn that Steiger's first name is "Alan". He really is coming into his own as a proper character now. They've gone for the old man=beer/woman=white wine archetype. Enter Pepper. She's still convinced that her parents are getting back together. They're both dressed up. Steiger is wearing his "best shirt". It's just an average plaid shirt, as far as I can make out. I guess she means that he's not wearing his police uniform. They're not getting back together. They're throwing Pepper and Frazer a surprise engagement party. Pepper looks taken aback.
Timmins house. Bree and Rachel. Bree discovers that you she'd have to be eighteen to change her name by Deed Poll. That doesn't mean that she can't change it unofficially though. She will heretofore be called 'Trinity' or 'Miss Black'. She's divvied up her friends and wants Rachel to inform half of them of her name-change. Zeke is at the head of Rachel's list. Rachel insists that Bree tell Zeke, but she refuses. They're still feuding over something or other. I forget what. I think Bree is in love with him and is terrified he'll reject her and she'll be hurt. She insists that just because Zeke is at the head of the list doesn't mean that she attaches any importance to him. The list is "reverse alphabetical". "No it isn't," says Rachel. Bree, Bree, Bree - you shouldn't have used such a disprovable lie. You could have said: "I put him at the top of your list because he's your brother and I figured you could tell him first." That would have worked. Isn't Bree supposed to be smart?
Scarlet Bar. The House of Trouser n00bs are gathered around Frazer's laptop. He and Will are sharing some headphones. They've bet on Pickle Prince - who should win unless it rains. The forecast isn't great. The race begins. They yell encouragement to Pickle Prince. Oh no! It's started to rain! Phew! Pickle Prince won anyway! Actually, that was reasonably suspenseful. And this gambling malarkey seems to be very profitable. Hold on a sec - I'll just put my life savings on some longshot somewhere and then I'll be able to afford to do whatever I want. There. It's done. Now - the waiting game. I'm so glad Neighbours encouraged me to become a reckless high-roller! Ned tells everyone he could kiss that horse. Awkward silence. On the cheek. Heh. Ned and Pickle Prince sitting in a tree ... Will calls 'Alan' (probably not Steiger) to tell him that the deal is off. Frazer doesn't want Rosetta to know that he had any part in raising the money for her operation.
Hospital. Rosetta and Carmella. "So much for Christian charity!" hardlines Rosetta. "It's not like that ..." protests Carmella feebly. "I can't live like this!" The scar, as I said last episode, is not that bad. Rosetta tells Carmella that she will swallow her pride and approach Mrs Corleone for the money for the operation. Carmella looks grateful. Enter Will. "The country's top burn specialist is flying in tomorrow to start burn treatment!" He tells them. He also mentions that Frazer is the hero of the hour.
Timmins domus. Zeke has been sent to retrieve Rachel. "Don't shoot the messenger," he urges her. Rachel hauls him in and insists that he and Bree sort things out. Rachel leaves. Bree tells Zeke that she is to be called Trinity Black now. Zeke tells her that Trinity is a cool name. No it isn't. Suck up. "I missed you," Bree admits. Zeke missed her too. They can be friends again. Bree tries to hug Zeke, and he pulls away, telling her that they must remain "just friends." There's someone else. And it's pretty serious. "It's not Madison, is it?" asks Bree fearfully. If only, Bree, if only. "No of course not! Madison is just a child," says Zeke dismissively. Bree looks heartbroken. Aw.
House of Hotties. Rosetta and Frazer. Rosetta wants to know why Frazer would help someone he barely knows to such a degree. Frazer is angry that the cat's out of the bag vis a vis his astute gambling. Speaking of which - it must be about time for me to collect my winnings ... Oh no! My life savings! My beautiful life savings! Gone! All gone! If I had any money left, I'd sue Reg Grundy for glamourising gambling. Frazer feels something for Rosie and she rejects him, citing his engagement to Pepper as the reason. Frazer's mobile keeps ringing - he repeatedly ignores it. It turns out that that was a mistake, because it was Pepper trying to warn him about the surprise engagement party. Which arrives in the kitchen.
Garden. People are thronging. Frazer wants to end the sham-engagement now. Pepper tells him that her father is a nasty cop and that he will be breathing down Frazer's neck if he calls things off so abruptly. Zeke overhears the exchange and looks furious. Steiger makes a speech beginning with the old saw "Brevity is the soul of wit". Thankfully, he is quite brief. He jokes that he's done a criminal records check on Frazer and found no priors "although the name change did throw me". Zeke butts in and interrupts the toast and
CRASHES AND BURNS.
Ouch. He tells everyone that the engagement is a phony and that Pepper loves him and him alone. Pepper tells him that she doesn't. Zeke runs off. "There's plenty of competition [for Pepper's hand] in the junior ranks." Jokes Steiger. Bree laughs.
Kitchen. Janae and Mrs Steiger. Janae tells her boss about the job offer from Rex Colt and Mrs Steiger tells her that he'll use her as a walking calendar girl. She tells Janae that she's hard on her because she wants her to be a really great mechanic. I think Janae was hoping for a pay-rise because she quits.
Garden. Steiger thinks that he and Frazer should get to know each other better. They should "go and bush for a weekend." They'd do what real men do. "Strip naked, daub ourselves with mud and make a drub." Frazer looks uncomfortable. Haha! Steiger's just joking he meant they should go fishing. What a guy! Pepper jokes with Rosetta that she should take up Zeke's offer. Zeke's pain and humiliation is pretty funny, but Pepper should bear in mind that she has, quite categorically, been leading him on.
Cut to Zeke sulking underneath a tree. Rachel approaches him. He tells her he "wants to get hit by a bit of white-hot space jink, incinerated into ashes and scattered by the wind." "That's just a tad unlikely, don't you think?" is her response. She laughs: "She's so much older than you?" "Did I laugh at you and Stingray?" snaps Zeke. Rachel is chastened. Zeke softens. "We can't choose who we love." This has been a repeated refrain of the past couple of weeks - one might almost call it a theme: Pepper loves Frazer; Elle loves Dylan; Lyn loves Paul; Rachel loves Stingray and none of them elected to love. Zeke tells Rachel that Pepper told him face to face that she loved him. Rachel is sceptical. Just at that moment, Pepper sleepwalks out and tells the two of them that she loves them. She sleepwalks away again. Convenient. Charlie Chaplin said that he could stomach coincidences - coincidences happen all the time in real life they are, undeniably, among the things that drive our lives forward, and inform our own personal narratives - but hated convenience in movies. Thus, it's certainly a contrivance of plot that in Chaplin's first feature length film The Kid it is the estranged mother who enters the deprived neighbourhood to give out toys to the poor, unwittingly handing one to her own son, but it is a coincidence which might well have happened in real life, and so it is conscionable. The appearance of the somnambulent Poo Poo falls, I think, into what Chaplin would have loathed as mere convenience. We saw her just seconds ago, wide awake at her engagement party, which was still in full swing. Zeke is just outside the House of Hotties, where the party is being held. Are we to believe that the party wound down, Pepper went to bed, went to sleep and then sleepwalked, while Zeke was sitting under the tree outside? Rachel would have seen him on leaving, and made no mention of the fact that she'd spent ages looking for him and Pepper made no mention of going to bed, or feeling tired. And for her to walk out at the very moment when Zeke was explaining to his sister how she'd confessed her love to him? Verisimilitude be damned! Rachel and Zeke must have Zeke's experience explained to them quickly, so convenience rules OK. This was lazy, lazy writing even by Neighbours lax standards.
Ext. Bree and Rachel are walking to school. Guy arrives in a car and abducts them. He takes a picture on his mobile phone "for the album". He's got the same mobile phone as me, only mine's orange (the colour, not the network). The resolution's terrible on that thing. If he sends it to Katya, she won't be able to make out what it's of.
Credits.
Happy Valentine's Day.
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