Episode 4772In
the previous episode, we saw events at the school formal take a turn
for the worst as a drugged-up Melody shut the doors and wandered into
the middle of the road, with Kane's car swerving into the hall to avoid
hitting her. Whilst at the development site, Tony was inconsolable as
he found his son Jack's body lying lifeless on the ground after having
been shot.
4772 was a highly emotional episode, with tears the
main order of the day. One of the first scenes was a 'dream sequence'
in which we saw Martha laying next to Jack at the hospital and him
responding as though he was still alive. In this scene Martha blamed
herself for what happened. She felt terrible for having encouraged Jack
to go back to the force, but Jack insisted that she wasn't to feel
guilty. But this didn't stop Martha from blaming herself again, as she
went on to talk about her many regrets at the time they hadn't been
together - such as when she went to the retreat on her own. Again, Jack
told her that she wasn't to feel guilty. The next few moments were
truly agonizing as the scene changed from a brightly lit colour back to
the cold and grim reality. Tony slowly entered the room and watched as
his daughter in law, who had been with Jack all night, said goodbye to
her husband. She left the room in floods of tears as Rachel entered and
pulled the sheet over Jack.
Back at Martha's, there was an
eerie silence. As she headed for the bedroom to be alone, Tony looked
around, lost. As the news circulated, Roman brought food for them and
was a listening ear for Tony as he talked about the night's events. As
Tony started to recall his memories, we saw various flashbacks - one of
Martha looking worried outside the hall, along with Tony finding Jack
and a new scene highlighting the fruitless efforts by the ambulance
crew to revive him. Tony then went on to explain that Jack had to be
taken to hospital for confirmation of his death and that he knew he
wouldn't be able to tell Martha. Instead, we saw Alf break the news to
his distraught grandaughter. With Martha having been in her room since
her and Tony arrived back, Roman went in to check on her. Though she
told him that she didn't want to talk to anyone, Roman made sure that
she new he was there for her when she did.
At Summer Bay
House, Alf and Miles talked about the tragic events and said that it
would be a senseless death if Kane died. Back at the hospital we saw
Kirsty beside his bedside, visibly hoping he would pull through.
As
Ken Harper left and asked Tony and Rachel to send his condolences to
Martha, an overwhelmed Rachel burst into tears and was comforted by her
fiance. The next scene saw Martha picking up Jack's uniform from his
wardrobe and smelling it, before crying once more.
The
following scene saw Kane wake up and ask for Kirsty, who was still
sitting by his bedside. Though she was obviously overjoyed, it was
clear that she was still very much torn in two as to her feelings for
him and Miles.
Back at Martha's, Tony entered and began to
talk about how he needed to be near her right now as she is the one he
is sharing this pain with. Martha then spoke about how she thought Jack
was going to wake up and talk to her, before bursting into tears on
Tony's shoulder. The last couple of minutes included a montage of
Colleen and Alf in the diner kitchen, Rachel crying on the front patio,
Tony simply staring into space in the living room and Martha laying on
the bed with Jack's clothes laid out beside her.
This episode had a stream of comments, the vast majority of which were positive.
Many
praised Jodi Gordon's (Martha) performance especially, calling it
'incredible' (Skykat), 'amazing' (caitrules), awesome' (Drew),
'absolutely brilliant' (stepthrose4). Jon Sivewright (Tony) and Amy
Matthews also impressed many members. 'Jon was fantastic, loved his
recounting it to Roman, those two talking it through really worked and
I loved his telling Martha that he needed her.'(SkyKat) 'Well done to
Amy Matthews, I couldn't believe how real her acting was tonight. I
especially liked the start of her solo crying scene where she has her
hand on her stomach where the bump will be (that was a nice touch). The
Breakdown scene she had after Harper left was well acted too + the
scene at the hospital where she can't bring herself to pronounce Jack
dead. (suzannelgnz) 'Jon was awesome tonight. He's the only character
who has made me react to Jack's death. (Natasha)
Some weren't
quite so keen on the dream sequence, saying that it was'overdone' for
them (john003au) and that the echoes were 'really annoying after a
while' (emmasi).
And a few of our members weren't quite sure
about the crying montage. 'Gotta say, crying montages do nothing for
me. They're awkward and disconnected from any exposition... I feel
nothing. Rachel crying into Tony's arms was what nearly set me off.'
(bobliveson) 'I find it hard to take it seriously especially when I
can't get out of my head that they're just acting. To me they have to
be REALLY, REALLY BELIEVABLE! I can only recall some scenes from last
year that have really had me fling out the tissues but that was only
three times.' (bailey4)
The majority of members did appear to
generally enjoy this episode, however, with JackWilkins adding that
Home and Away 'deal with and portray death and grief beautifully'.