AUS Television: Offspring, Episode 1.7

Offspring
Series One, Episode Seven
Original Air Date:  October 3, 2010

Chris leaves for Brisbane to check on the lead relating to his missing wife, Alice.  Something great happens for Mick with his music.  Darcy and Billie meet Cherie's adoptive father, the ultra-religious Gareth.  Bad telephone connections and disconnections lead to a massive break down in communication between Nina and Chris with disastrous results.

Chris makes preparations at work for his absence before leaving for Brisbane.  He takes Nina aside to apologize again for everything and to say goodbye.  He will be gone a week and Nina wonders to herself "what's the etiquette for saying farewell to a man you almost had sex with on the occasion of his search for his missing wife?".  That's a question we've all pondered at least once, right?  No?  I don't think so, either.  They share a quick kiss before she ushers him off so he won't miss his plane.

Chris calls Nina from Brisbane but she's kind of occupied with a pregnant woman.  She manages to get to the phone just as he is hanging up.  She goes to a cafe and hopes he'll call again but, when a call comes through, it's her mother saying little white pills in a weird little bottle fell out of Jimmy's jacket when she picked it up. 

In Brisbane, Chris goes to a doctors office wanting to find out if his wife had been in there recently.  The receptionist is quite snippy with him until he tells her the particulars of the case.  She checks his wife's Medicare number and it comes up with nothing.  He calls Nina again wanting to hear her voice and, this time, catches her in the bathroom at home.  The connection isn't very good and the call terminates on them.  He meets with an old friend and they talk about Alice.  Chris goes back to the doctors office wanting to leave a note for the doctor.  He actually gets to talk to the doctor and the doctor does recognize Alice.  He saw her about two weeks ago.  Chris gets a glance at her address on the file and goes to the apartment building where she lives.  She answers when he presses the button for her apartment but she will not speak to him.  He tells her he is going to get on with his life and leaves.

Jimmy is participating in a research study (numerous studies, actually).  He sniffs t-shirts, watches videos, drinks beer and plays games.  He gets $20 an hour for it.  Geraldine confronts him about the pills when he arrives home.  After she sees the marks from the blood tests and Nina arrives he tells them about signing up to be a subject in a drug trial.  The pills are aspirin with a new coating on them.  The drug trial becomes harder on him as he progresses through it.  He is removed from a sleep study when it is found out that he has been involved in numerous medical trials.  The administrator of the trial feels he would be better suited for a research study he's working on that deals with fluent liars (!).

Billie has a quick meeting with Jimmy and finds out that Ivy has gone.  Mick drives up dressed smartly in a suit.  He has to postpone croquet with Jimmy because he has a meeting he must attend and asks Jimmy to look after Rocket.  Billie watches the entire exchange between the two men from the door of Proudman Realty.  Mick later returns with the excellent news that a song of his will be used in a television ad for $20,000.  The ad will be for milk and he will get an extra $7,000 if he re-records the song.

Mick goes to Proudman Realty and shares the good news with Billie.  Darcy and Cherie overhear and congratulate him.  Billie, however, ruins things.  Rather than being happy for him and congratulating him she asks if she should be happy for him because Ivy isn't there.  Mick tells her that when something good happens to him it doesn't feel real until he shares it with her then leaves.  Way to go, Billie.  You still love him but you really messed that one up!  And you know it, too!

Billie does it again while with Cherie and Darcy.  She is holding Ray and asks him if he'd like to meet his grandpa.  Cherie is now forced to tell Darcy about him.  Since Gareth is Ray's maternal grandfather, Darcy would like to meet him.  Darcy, Billie, Cherie and Gareth meet in a restaurant.  Billie, as usual, is talking way too much and saying things she shouldn't.  Things become uncomfortable when Gareth tells Cherie that he and her mother want to be involved in she and Darcy's wedding preparations.  They assume that since they have a child together, they will be getting married.  Before the dinner ends and Gareth leaves, they all have a moment of prayer.  Later that night, Darcy asks her if she had been dropping signals about wanting to get married.  She makes it clear she hasn't.

Mick is working on re-recording his song for the milk commercial and, when he finds it difficult calls Billie to ask her if he is selling out.  She tells him they aren't together anymore and he can't "twiddle her knobs".  He thought she would be interested but that call would be the last time he will bother her.

As Chris is getting ready to come home, he calls Nina to let her know he found Alice and that he was happy about it because it finally helped him realize what he wanted.  She thinks he is telling her that he doesn't want to be with her.  The connection again cuts off at the WORST possible time.  He is telling her he doesn't want her in a half-hearted way but she doesn't get to hear anything past "I don't want you".

Nina goes home and the power is off.  Mick arrives to bring Billie the $200 he owes her.  The two spend the evening commiserating about failed relationships over ice cream.  After the ice cream, comes the booze.  After the booze, they end up having sex.  When the alarm goes off and awakens the two, they both throw on clothes as Nina goes around the apartment getting things in order.  There's a knock at the door.  It's Chris!  When she opens the door he immediately starts talking and tells her that now that he knows Alice is alive and alright it frees him to be completely with her.  She tells him she wants to be with him but not right now.  Saying that she's free to be involved with other people, he leaves after apologizing. 

Billie arrives home but Mick has slipped out and Nina gets back into bed and feigns being asleep.  Billie talks to Nina about how she's messed things up with Mick even though Nina is still faking being asleep. 

The Commonwealth Games are giving Offspring a bit of a break.  It will be returning on October 17, 2010.  Then, we will get to find out just how much damage has been done by Nina's one-night-stand with Mick!

Offspring airs on Sundays at 8:30 p.m. on Ten Network.
Official Site:  http://ten.com.au/offspring.htm
The Internet Movie Database:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1530541/
TV Rage:  http://www.tvrage.com/shows/id-25992