Pay Off

Amount of money needed to pay off debt: £9,000. Vengeance exacted while getting that money: priceless.

I still don’t think Lewis is justified in his outrage at Gail for testing his loyalty to her mother, and certainly not at Audrey for going along with it when she found out. It makes me think that his professed love for her and change in character isn’t so profound.

The test, after all, was specifically related to his long-term vocation and avocation, ripping off women like Audrey. Had he been truly changed by his love for Audrey, he would have accepted that they had cause for doubt regardless of the humiliation caused to him.

However, he is a man with pride and an astounding ability to hold a grudge. While that has been bad for Audrey and now Gail, it’s been great for us as viewers.

Italian for Lovers

Gail assembles the family to tell them she and Lewis are moving to Italy.  Lewis texts her: start without me. He texts Nick: put the Italian for Lovers dvd in. It’s a lesson of a different sort.

Lewis is behind the bar at the Bistro, mixing himself a cocktail and telling Gail what he has done and why. He cleaned out her bank account because she had cost him his relationship with Audrey. He tells Audrey that he truly loved her. But thanks to Gail, he was back to his former self and wanted revenge. And that, he said, is best served like a Bellini in a chilled glass – cold.

I knew the dénouement of Lewis’ scam would be good but it was better than I imagined. I actually felt sorry for poor Gail by the end. And I was happy to see Audrey vindicated.

An added treat was Lewis’ message to Kylie: that she “could do a good deal better than that weasel of a husband.”

In his words to Nick, that he too deserved happiness, there was a coded message to him and Kylie. The others in the room wouldn’t get it, but probably Kylie did in that she knew that Lewis knew about her night with Nick.

Kylie feels guilty about having given Gail’s banking password to Lewis. But he would have found it sooner or later. Back at the Bistro, she told Nick what she had done. I’m glad she did; a burden shared is a burden lightened and, after all, he can’t afford to rat her out to Gail.

Next – Sylvia

What can possibly follow such a splendid scene? Why, Sylvia and Roy. Nicely timed, too, with Hayley and Roy looking at Sylvia’s steamer trunk for a few seconds. Very little dialogue to be missed while audiences are still exulting over Lewis’ tour de force. Then Roy talks about the trunk, familiar to him from his childhood. He used to hide in it during his birthday parties.

Sylvia hears him as she enters the room.  “I lifted the lid and there he was, playing with his little Dinkies. Well, lining them up in straight rows actually.” It is wonderful to have her back.

What would make me really happy would be for Lewis to return and be in a story with Sylvia. I don’t know what the storyline might be but I think they could have the two of them sit in the café and read the telephone book and that would be a pay off of a different sort.