AUS Television: Rake, Episode 1.7 "R vs. Tanner"

Rake
Season One, Episode Seven, R vs. Tanner
Original Air Date:  December 16, 2010

Cleaver is bashed during an unsuccessful robbery attempt at a chemists shop and must testify at the trial of the young man accused of the robbery, bashing and death of his fellow robber.  Joe Sandilands is outed as one of fourteen politicians who frequented Club Jules.  Tired of the stress of the situation, Joe commits suicide.  Cleaver is given the case of Travis Tanner, a young man accused of bashing and robbing "Glebe woman".  Cleaver learns some shocking truths about Missy that have the ability to change the relationship between the two of them forever.  Fuzz hits some relationship woes with Fiona.  Barney deals with his separation from Scarlett.

Barney spends a sleepless night without Scarlett but, oddly enough, finds himself smiling as he stands by the pool drinking his coffee the following morning.

Joe Sandilands is outed as one of fourteen politicians who frequented Club Jules, the brothel where Missy used to work.  Video of him leaving the Club was put on YouTube leaving Sandilands no choice but to issue a statement expressing regret and remorse to his family, colleagues and supporters.

Cleave, who is suffering from a lion of a hang-over begs Nicole to find something to "kill the bastard behind my eyes" but, alas, she cannot find anything that will do the trick.  Two men go through their last minute preparations for a robbery.  Unfortunately, they have chosen to rob the exact same chemists shop where Cleaver has gone to get something for his "step-mother of all headaches".  They enter the shop while the chemist has gone to the back to fetch something for Cleave's headache.  Poor Cleaver, who can't stop telling the young men that they are on "candid camera" and that they should bolt before getting caught ends up getting bashed in the side of the head.

The young men return to their flat after the unsuccessful robbery attempt and, while one who was severely injured during the attempt sleeps, the other tries to wash the web he'd drawn on his face off. 

While having his injuries taken care of at hospital, Cleaver watches a news story about David "Harry" Potter and wonders where HIS parade is.  Barney arrives at the hospital and tells Cleaver to never call him again as he isn't his next of kin.  When Cleaver tells him they can get over everything, Barney informs him coolly that he has gotten over Scarlett and over his friendship with him then leaves.

Scarlett arrives angry at she and Barney's house to tell him that until she is informed otherwise, it is still their house and their children.  Barney doesn't argue, he simply says 'okay' and walks away. 

Cleave arrives back at his office where Nicole shows him a small newspaper article about his assault at the chemists shop.  He's more angry that a Glebe woman who was bashed and robbed got a bigger story that he did.  When Nicole hands him the brief for Travis Tanner, the man accused to bashing the Glebe woman, Cleave vows to get him off to show Glebe woman who's boss and what it's like to be below the fold.  While going over the case with Simone from the Crown Prosecutors Office, Cleave is told that, while Tanner fits the description given by Glebe woman, there is a witness who claims to have seen Tanner in the city at the precise time Glebe woman's attack occurred.  The witness just so happens to be Missy.

Cleave speaks with Missy about what had happened.  She literally bumped into Tanner on Phillips Street.  Tanner helped her pick up her belongings she had dropped and even introduced himself to her by name.  She can even describe a tattoo on his shoulder.  She heard about the crime on the radio (but didn't hear about the barista from King's Cross, unfortunately) and came forward and the case eventually was delivered to Cleaver.  Cleaver sees the entire situation as proof of their spiritual connection.

Simone and Cleaver pay a visit to Tanner in jail who gives them the details of why he was on Phillips Street.  He wanted to see "the blue".  The weather was poor but he still spent most of the day by the harbour before going back to the halfway house where he was staying.  He went past the law school where Missy studies because he doesn't know the city that well. 

Wanting a private word with him, Mick and Col drop in on Cleave as he is having a drink.  They heard what happened at the chemists shop.  Mick tells him the boys that bashed him happens to be the son of a good friend of his.  He goes on to say that the other boy, Tony, died and, after asking Cleave what happened and getting an answer, he (Mick) wants Cleave to make sure Josh won't get a sentence for murder (but manslaughter is okay).

Missy and Joe Sandilands meet and he tells her his wife has given him two weeks to find a new place to live.  She knew he was visiting the Club but the humiliation of everyone knowing is too much for her.  Jules is keeping an understandably low profile.  Someone had hacked in and gotten the client list.  Missy is worried that if the client list is out, the list of girls working at the brothel is also out.  Joe assures her it's only the "celebs" anyone is interested in.  When he suggests she tell David, she declines that saying they're too far down the track for that.  He asks her if she ever enjoyed it when they were together at the Club.  Her answers lead him to believe she didn't and that Cleaver was always the one for her.  He asks if she fell in love with Cleaver and she replies once or twice but that he's a hopeless case.  He leaves her with a few words that "it might have been" are the saddest words and a light touch on the cheek.

Barney and Scarlett attend couples therapy even though they've already made the decision to divorce, for the children's sake.  They end up bickering over who Barney meant by 'them' (the kids).  When they leave the office, Scarlett wants to know what Barney is playing at with his new facade.  He says the fog has lifted and he's got the desire to move on, which is what they both want, of course.

Cleaver goes into the mens room and, when he hears coughing, assumes it's a colleague who is using the patch to try and quit smoking.  After going on for a few seconds about how the man is destined to be a smoker, the man comes out of the stall and it's not his colleague.  The man ridicules Cleaver for talking incessantly, even while using the loo, then tells him he wants to see "the prick Greene".  Cleaver calmly gives him directions where he can find Greene.  In Cleaver's office, the man from the mens room and his wife, Tanner's parents, and Simone, are waiting on him.  They hardly seem to be hands-on parents. 

Joe Sandilands drives out to the ocean and commits suicide.  Cleaver, Wendy, David and Missy and Barney and Scarlett are in attendance at the funeral.  Cleaver is clearly upset by the loss of his friend.  Barney comforts Joe's widow telling her one day she will wake up, the pain will be gone and she will begin again.

After the funeral, Wendy tells Cleave she's having a dinner for Fuzz's birthday at her place if he's free and that Fiona will be there.  He talks about how seeing her talking with Scarlett reminded him of how things used to be years ago and how much he misses those times.  He's lost them all, he believes and he loves them all, most of all Wendy.  He kisses her and she asks him to get out of the car. 

He calls Missy and the two meet at a club and talk over the list of so-called Club celebrities published in the paper.  He's annoyed that out of thirty names, he didn't get a mention.  A drunken Barney visits a pole-dancing club.  Missy tells Cleave she saw Joe the morning he committed suicide.  She's distraught over if she could have helped Joe or not.  Cleave comforts her confirming that Joe was just sick of the BS.  Missy is as well and confides in Cleaver that she's sick of it all with David as she's having to lie to him and pretend she's someone she isn't.  He tells her to give David the truth; be real with David the way she's real with him.  She laughs it away as being not that simple before the two share a kiss. 

Barney pays a dancer at the club $200 for a kiss.  The next morning, still drunk, Barney dances in a public fountain where he is seen by Cleaver.  When two constables tell him to get out of the fountain, Cleaver comes to his rescue.  The constables leave Barney alone and, after much trouble, Cleave finally gets him out of the fountain.

Missy arrives at home and finds that David isn't as understanding of her mourning Joe as she thought he might be.  He doesn't understand how she can mourn someone she just met a little while ago so hard.  He chastises her for disappearing all the time and reminds her that he's running for Parliament and that they are getting married and he must know where she was the night before.  She begins to cry and turns and runs into the bedroom and closes the door without answering him.

Cleave takes Barney to the cafe he lives above to pour some coffee into him to sober him up.  Barney tells him he tried to be Cleaver for the night and that he went to the bar.  As he was kissing the woman, everything came back to him and he burst into tears then threw up on the woman.  Cleave pours Barnyard into a cab and takes him home where the two are met by Scarlett.  She immediately assumes Cleaver did something to Barney.  She orders Cleave to leave her family alone then takes Barney into the house.

Scarlett, who is prosecuting Cleaver's assault case, decides she wants to cross examine him when he takes the stand despite protests from her colleague.  Mick arrives in the courtroom as Scarlett stands to start her examination.  She questions him calmly but firmly about what he saw the night he was bashed and how, if he had been hit hard enough to send him to hospital, he is able to be sure he didn't actually see Josh strike his mate on purpose.  She asks if he'd been drinking or even taking cocaine which draws a word from the judge.  He admits he'd been to rehab for cocaine addiction two years ago and she asks if he's taken the drug since.  She then asks if he's an associate of Michael Corella and he does admit to defending him.  When the questions become too tough, Cleaver takes a novel approach:  he tells the judge he has had sexual relations with Scarlett and that she is his best friends wife leading the judge to call Scarlett into chambers.

Cleaver rushes from his bashing trial to Travis Tanner's trial.  Cleaver is surprised to learn from a constable that the "Glebe woman" wasn't a "Glebe woman" at all.  The attack occurred in Glebe but the woman was actually from Annandale.  He also learns that the seventy-one year-old woman was attacked from behind but was able to describe her attacker including a barbed wire tattoo on his arm.  He gets the constable to admit he's seen barbed wire tattoos many times throughout the course of his career.  Cleaver suggests that since Tanner was arrested within two hours of the attack, there was no real investigation and even went so far as to merely cross reference inhabitants of the halfway house to hit upon Tanner to pin the crime on. 

Cleave attends Fuzz's birthday dinner and finds Wendy angry at him (for the kiss), Fuzz and "Vampira" (Fiona).  Conversation is tense during the dinner and get even more tense when Wendy makes a comment about Fiona not acting her age.  Fuzz calls his mother on the comment and says she must get used to the fact that he and Fiona are in love.  As Cleaver is delivering a toast to his now 16 year-old son, Fiona stands and rushes from the room.  Fuzz follows her.  Both Wendy and Cleaver comfort their son who has been dumped by Fiona for someone younger.  Fuzz is distraught because Fiona was "the one" and blames them for Fiona meeting the new man at the new school they drove her to.  Cleave and Wendy can't help but share a small laugh after Fuzz storms out of his bedroom.  He offers to call Fiona's new school in the morning to let them know of her penchant for young men.

Barney moves into a new home.  David wishes Missy good luck with the "Glebe woman case" as she's getting ready to leave for court.  She arrives at the courthouse and tries to avoid Cleaver but he follows her all the way to the ladies room where he finds her crying.  She is upset that Tanner's parents are at the trial.  She confesses to Cleave that Tanner's mum and dad are HER mother and father and Travis is her younger brother.  She acknowledges that Travis did commit the crime but his life will be over if he goes into prison again.  He warns her about the dangers of getting in the witness box and lying if she is found out.  She continues to confess even more including the fact her name is Jane Tanner.  He's angry that she felt the need to lie to him but she insists she started the lies before she ever met him. 

In court, Cleaver questions Missy/Jane about what she claimed happened on the night of the attack with two questions:  what time she saw him and if she is convinced it was Travis Tanner she saw.  She answers both questions with the lie she made up to save her brother.  As Cleave is leaving the courthouse with Simone, Missy runs up to him to thank him.  He politely replies to her then turns back to Simone saying drinks are in order.

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This episode sure was packed to the gills!  I certainly can't NOT mention Joe Sandilands suicide.  I really liked Joe.  The character added some great humor to the show when he appeared.  Geoff Morrell was awesome as the no-nonsense, say exactly what he's thinking politician.  I'm sad Joe is leaving and I will certainly miss him showing up from time to time.

The biggest news from this episode are the truths Missy dropped on Cleaver before the Travis Tanner trial.  She told him so many of her darkest secrets.  Secrets she'd never tell anyone else.  She trusted him with who she really is.  She also put Cleaver in a position she really didn't have any right to put him in.  Sure, she wanted to protect her brother, but at what cost?  If it's learned she lied on the stand her life will be destroyed and Cleaver will surely see some trouble from it as well since he allowed her to lie.  I can only imagine this will damage their friendship.  Maybe not permanently as Cleaver is extremely fond of her, but it will cause some damage.  And just maybe this needed to happen to Cleaver.  He now knows what it feels like to have been painted into a corner by someone he loves.  He was in the exact same situation with Missy that he had put his friends and loved ones in many times.

We have one more episode left this season.  It's a shame Rake is coming to a close so soon.  When a show is this good, I could watch a brand new episode every single week and never tire of it.  The final episode of the first season of Rake airs on 23rd December, 2010.  Could you ask for any better Christmas prezzy than that?
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Rake airs each Thursday at 8:30 p.m. (AUS time) on ABC1.
For more information:
Official ABC1 Site:  http://www.abc.net.au/tv/rake/
The Internet Movie Database:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587000/
TV Rage:  http://tvrage.com/shows/id-26845