Yes yes, final episode of The Slap, very good. There was actual humour, earned suspense, and a convincing argument that youth is the right time do most things – especially emerge relatively intact from an infuriating injustice triggered by the careless actions of your friend Connie. Brendan Cowell wrote this episode and also plays Richie’s dad- a character so loud and specific his performance is basically just him licking our screen.
This episode and indeed the whole show has been such a well-stocked supermarket of plots and issues that the only thing I felt deprived of was a gauche ‘Where are they now?’ Harry Potter/Six Feet Under-style epilogue. Here it is.
Hector takes a postgraduate course in Law. He spends a lot of him time talking about ‘the Law’ and repeating things his new friends said, two mature-age female students who are members of the Greens and take thermos tea to class. He splashes out and decides to take the family to London for the Olympics and inexplicably begins wearing those men’s sports leggings under shorts. From time to time, Hectors looks up Connie on Facebook. Connie has made no effort to understand privacy settings so he is able to see her at parties with her arm around various skinny boys, as well as an exhaustive photo album of her car, which is for sale. Discovers Gotye in Feb 2013.
Anouk finally writes her book ‘Heart of Palm’, which centres on the slap that happened at Aisha and Hector’s barbecue. It fails to capture the zeitgeist, for some reason. Her publisher advises her to get a Twitter account – it lies dormant with 7 tweets and 303 followers. She is interviewed on Conversatons with Richard Fidler and sits on a Melbourne Writers Festival panel called ‘Contemporary Australian Fiction, the Nuclear Family: A Crisis in Femininity?’. She also teaches a writing course at Swinburne University, usually sitting cross-legged on the table at the front of the room. Anouk finally earns critical acclaim for the play she writes a play about Manolis, from the perspective of herself. In this thoroughly Brechtian production, Brendan Cowell is cast to play Manolis while Deborah Mailman plays Anouk. Anouk and Brendan Cowell fall in love.
Harry and Sandi have a baby girl called Sofia. He develops a close friendship with a relative on the other side of the family, who seeks him out to invest in an energy drink called Rastamansta and a clothing business called Crisp. The investments prove to be very lucrative and he uses the money to pay for apartments for Rocco and Sofia, many prostitutes, an expensive home coffee machine (he gets one for Hector too), and a new laptop for Sandi (a Sony VAIO). He is approached to appear on the new series of Go Back To Where You Came From.
Connie and Ali are over by the Big Day Out so she decides to spend a year in London as a nanny. During this time she talks constantly of her best friend Richie, unconsciously expressing her affection for him by grabbing shy boys at parties and posing for photos where she’s kissing them on the cheek. Back in Melbourne, she gets a job in a tourist cafe and starts dating the English cook. They are briefly engaged but she breaks up with him and transfers all her energy in to trying to arrange catch-ups with Richie. She never picks a good place to meet. Connie enrols in a Psychology degree, listens to Nova and keeps rose-scented hand-cream in the door of her purple Barina. She is a brilliant student but drops out of her psychology degree when she is scouted by an acting agent who secures her a breakout role in an Australian film about suicide and incest.
Rosie makes muesli, generously stocked by a local store in Daylesford and sold at a few university food co-ops. Her muesli has an extremely high fat content and a short expiry date. Rosie doesn’t have an email address of her own, she uses Gary’s. Sometimes Gary will announce that he has heard an email come through, but really it’s a newsletter from Rosie’s organic food supplier (she likes to read every word of this newsletter.) Rosie is supportive of Gary’s plan to write and illustrate a children’s book series, based on things Hugo has said. It’s a good idea but she doesn’t know how to tell him that the sarcastic tone of his text is inappropriate because Gary will get very angry at her if she does. They have a baby girl called Rachel, after Anouk’s mother.
Manolis and Koula spend their Saturdays inspecting apartments because Hector says they should downsize. They never bid or make an offer but looking becomes part of their routine. He goes to church and starts helping out at community events – this is quite a mutually beneficial relationship for both Manolis and the church. The church staff makes a big fuss of Manolis and tell Koula what a great job he is doing and how they don’t know what they would do without him! The Family decides to give him an iPad for his 70th birthday, pre-loaded with Greek music and a Greek newspaper App – he loves it. Like really gets super in to it. Loves loves loves the iPad. Harry also gives him a coffee machine. Manolis still enjoys growing tomatoes-his current favourite are the ‘oxheart’.
Aisha enrols in numerous conferences and takes on several locum vets to generate opportunities to have another affair. Never has another affair. She reaches a new customer loyalty threshold at Gorman and is allowed to bring a plus 1 to VIP pre-sale nights. She brings along Anouk because she thinks she might like to start wearing more Gorman, but realises this is a miscalculation when Anouk spends the evening swilling free champagne and being patronising towards the sales staff. Anouk invites Aisha to the Melbourne International Film Festival in return, and her relationship with Hector is rekindled to a degree because she watches a touching Greek film. She tries but fails to discourage her daughter Melissa from entering Australia’s Next Top Model. Melissa does not make it as a model and ends up studying Media and Communications (at the same uni as her dad.)
Richie goes out with Leonard until 1st semester Uni, where he is studying International Studies and Spanish. He wears acrylic 70s sweaters, volunteers at Get Up, plays in a mixed netball team, and is good friends with Daniel Assange. In 3rd year Richie is invited to do Honours with his high credit average and starts going out with an older boy involved in student politics and the food co-op. Richie becomes half-heartedly involved in both of those things and becomes extremely well-liked by people who have been merely acquaintances of his
boyfriend for several years. The extent of his friendship with Connie: Facebook. She writes overly affectionate messages on his Wall that he ignores, pretending he doesn’t really understand the internet. This claim is undermined by his active Twitter presence during #qanda.
Sophie Braham spends the rest of her days gratuitously bringing up The Slap because having written 10000+ words on it in the past 8 weeks she honestly doesn’t remember what other conversations are about. Everyone agrees it’s a really off-putting habit and the time has come to talk about something else. She continues to tweet here.
