Truth and Consequences

Tuesday, all scenes of three stories about truth telling. Opening with what looks like Tina dead in the builder’s yard. But no, she’s moving – and talking. And talking!

Seeing her plunge over the railing was shocking. Hearing her moans, I was relieved. Maybe she lives after all. Rob was actually going to call an ambulance.

But then she raised up and started talking.  Telling him what she was going to tell the police, what would happen to him, and Tracy and Peter and Carla. Not the best time to savour the revenge you do not yet have! Maybe wait until you’re in the ambulance, with witnesses. But no, she won’t shut up. Finally Rob beaned her with an iron rod.

“Reminds me of Peter Sellers”

My husband muttered, “reminds me of Peter Sellers in The Party. He’s a movie extra who just won’t die.”

We watched it online, then watched Tina’s protracted death scene again. Tina’s scene is not being played for laughs, but it’s pretty hard not to after you’ve watched the bugler who wouldn’t die.

Peter’s truth

Meanwhile, Peter is in the back room of the Rovers telling Carla about his affair. He decided to preempt Tina doing so. His explanation and Carla’s reaction were painful to watch.

Every trite and stupid line ever said in the history of cheating mankind, Peter said. The hangdog looks, the barely concealed defiance when she didn’t reward him for his ‘honesty’. He made my skin crawl. Carla was brilliant; heart-broken and angry. Not likely to forgive him but terrified of being alone and pregnant. Feeling justifiably betrayed but almost letting his little digs of recrimination get to her.

And at the end, with Tina discovered and the police there, the looks Peter and Carla gave each other. They each know they did not attack Tina, but each fears that maybe the other did.

Anna’s truth

Another confession is taking place across the road, with Anna and Owen. In her fuzzy-bunny bathrobe, Anna tells Owen about the deal she made with Phelan to get him and Gary out of their problem. He gives her a chance to take an easy way out when he says, “so Phelan forced himself on you.”

But having come this far in this difficult truth, Anna doesn’t try to absolve herself. Even though she would be perfectly right to say yes, he forced himself, she does not. She says, first by implication and later words, that she did it willingly. And that Owen cannot handle, despite it obviously being a situation of coercion.

Tina, Carla and Anna: three women put in impossible situations by men in their lives. Rob with murder in his heart. Peter trying to escape his truths. Owen devastated emotionally as well as financially.