A Hustler’s Leftover Notes – S3E4 G’Day Melbourne

Episode 4 Notes – G’Day Melbourne

Summary

This episode focuses on Kevin and Nora’s trip to Australia. Nora is meeting the people that recruited her to use a radiation machine to connect with her departed children went. Kevin is along for the ride to escape his current reality and to get closer to Nora.

Title

G’Day Melbourne refers to a fictitious Australia version of the television show, Good Morning America. There are walking tours in Melbourne with a company by the name of G’Day Melbourne.

Opening Song

Episode opens with the same opening credits to the song, This Love is Over by Ray Lamontagne and the Pariah Dogs.

• This song foreshadows the impending breakup of Nora and Kevin but it also fits the opening credit sequence better than the last two episodes.

Other Music – (The Doors Break On Through to the Other Side song kept popping into my head for some reason during this episode.)

• Caro Nome from Act 1 of Rigoletto; Composed by Verdi

o Although different than the Nabucco opera by Verdi in the International Assassins episode, it clearly links the two. This music plays when Nora is reading an excerpt from the Book of Kevin in the hotel room when he pushes Patti down the well.

o Rigoletto’s daughter, Gilda sings this part of the opera.

o Caro nome is a portrayal of young love in all its innocence and idealism. It marks the first step in Gilda’s transformation from innocent young girl to self-sacrificing heroine. The Gilda we encounter in Act II, with her long solo ‘Tutte le feste al tempio’, is a very different woman, both in terms of her emotions and her music. The fact that in ‘Caro nome’ we already know her love for the Duke is doomed makes its tenderness and sincerity all the more poignant.

• Take On Me – Aha

o Three versions of this played during the episode:

▪ The physicists, Drs. Aden and Becker played an instrumental version on the piano;

▪ The second version was by Genghis Barbie and plays when Nora enters the coffin and Kevin arrives at the library looking for Danish

▪ The last version was the original performed by A-ha begins as Kevin gets into his father’s truck and during the last shot of Nora with the eternal tears.

RECAP

Airport

The eerie beginning of the episode’s theme song over the opening credits foretells that the love between Kevin and Nora is over. There are many obvious signs throughout the episode that the love is indeed over. Gone are the subtle hints. In Australia, we get the realness.

• Kevin and Nora are at the airport about to go through security screening. The security agent tells Nora that she can go through the faster global entry special access line. When the agent asks if Kevin and she are together, Nora doesn’t immediately answer. Nora quickly leaves the line and says on her way out to Kevin, “I’ll just see you on the other side.”

o Some part of Nora wants to go to the other side and from her appearance she is very happy to make this process faster.

• As Nora is going through her security screening, the alarm goes off and she looks a little dismayed. The “false” alarm was because of her watch. As she is walking toward the tram, Kevin calls to her and it’s almost as if she forgot he was there. Clearly upset, Kevin asks Nora why she didn’t just stay in the regular security clearance line with him. Nora then tells Kevin that she decided to use her global access security perk, so that she wouldn’t be scanned by more sensitive equipment because she is carrying $20,000 in cash that is strapped to her body. Federal law prohibits passengers from carrying more than $10,000 in cash across international lines. When Kevin tells her that she could have just given him half the money to avoid this, it is clear by her reaction that she didn’t want to share this with him. They then go to the airport bathroom and Nora removes the money from her torso. They then have sex against a baby changing stand. This is just passionless sex between two people who no longer appear to be emotionally connected.

o Through the airport scenes, it is abundantly clear that Nora has already moved on from Kevin and that he is just there. She is very eager to go through with the scientific procedure.

o Could the end of episode one with Nora and the birds be the other side that is suggested by the storytelling here

Plane Trip

While on the plane, Kevin says that the scientists will suspect Nora’s intentions that she is not willing to go through the procedure if they find out that he is there with her. Nora explains that she’ll lie and tell them that they have a toxic co-dependent relationship and that they are better off apart than together.

• Nora has already mentally departed. The relative ease of some of the statements Nora makes and her actions, indicate how much she is hoping/believing that this procedure will reunite her with her children even if it means death.

• Crazy Airport passenger at the Austin airport who has a HAZMUT (Hazardous Materials) suit and rants about needing to get to Antarctica before an imminent global event.

Hotel Room

While at the hotel room, Nora mocks Matt’s gospel of Kevin. She reads a random passage from it that describes the scene of him pushing Patti into a well on the other side (from the “International Assassin”). As Kevin is becoming increasingly uncomfortable, the phone rings for Nora. She confirms her appointment which is to catch a bus and to get off at the last stop. She tells Kevin not to follow her and to stay in the hotel.

G’Day Melbourne

After Nora leaves the hotel room, Kevin turns on the television. The only channel he can watch is running a show called “G’Day Melbourne,” which seems like the Australian version of Good Morning America. He doesn’t want to watch the channel and he tries to change it. He calls the front desk and complains. They say that this happens from time to time and that the only way to stop it is by cutting the power to the television. After he hangs up, the show mentions there are two missing Kevins: One is the police chief sacrificed by Grace and the other horsewomen and the other is Kevin Garvey Sr. He then sees Evie Murphy looking in on the show through the studio window holding a sign that reads:

“Surah 81” — this Surah (or section) from the Qur’an discusses the signs about the Hereafter and the occurrence of some great changes regarding the end of the world and the beginning of the Next World, through the Resurrection. This is basically an apocalyptic reading full of end-times imagery, foretelling about the coming day of judgement and the apocalypse, but also the resurrection. The actual words are listed in the notes below.

• Evie appears to respond to Kevin when he says to her, “Can You Hear Me?” by staring directly at him. The television cuts off immediately after. He then rushes out of the room and finds out where G’Day Melbourne is shot on location from the hotel receptionist. She calls him Mr. Durst, which he doesn’t like. As he gets a taxi, he passes Nora.

o This again shows how distant Kevin and Nora are from each other.

o Why is Surah 81, a section of the Qur’an used here? Is it yet another sign to Kevin that he is the resurrected one who will help remake the world after the impending apocalypse

• Kevin arrives at the location of the live viewing for G’Day Melbourne searching for Evie. Kevin doesn’t see her initially as he takes her spot in the window of the live broadcast. He spots her based on the hijab she is wearing walking away from the crowd. Kevin chases who he thinks is Evie down an alley. She doesn’t respond to the name, but she does address him although confused. Kevin is completely unhinged at this point and screams, “What the F… are you doing here? Did Pattie send you?” Then a man sees Kevin and gets in Kevin’s face. Kevin takes a picture of Evie to show other people that it is proof. This is when the man head-butts him to protect the woman.

o I thought this was a cool moment in the sense that the man who hit Kevin was trying to protect the woman, probably assuming that Kevin was harassing her because she was a woman, Muslim or both. This would seem to contrast with our country at the moment.

o Evie is clearly dead from what the show indicated before. Erika also said she buried her remains, but Kevin thinks that she might still be alive somehow because of all the weird happenings.

• Kevin calls Laurie and tells her his fantastic story. Kevin sends the picture to Laurie while on the phone and we can’t see it. She confirms that it is Evie but tells him not to approach her again. Laurie looked up her Facebook profile though the information he provided and found her alias, Danish Moabizzi and tells him that she works at the public library.

• Kevin goes to the library like a crazy person and causes a scene looking for Danish Moabizzi. He tells the librarian on hand that only Danish can help him find a book entitled, “Assassins.” The book doesn’t exist (just like Evie isn’t real). Right before security can escort him out, Evie stands up and says she’ll speak with him in private. They go to a room and she tells him that she is Evie Murphy and not to tell anyone because she just wants to start a new life. His behavior is very threatening and she starts to pray in Arabic. She then explains to Kevin that Laurie called here and asked her to pretend that she’s Evie because as Laurie foreshadowed before, you can’t tell someone in the midst of a psychotic break that they are having a psychotic break. You have to indulge the person’s delusion and find common ground, otherwise they will be more likely to hurt themselves.

• Kevin then calls Laurie while she is at dinner with John and she helps him see that he is having a psychotic breakdown by looking at the picture he took of Evie earlier. When he looks at it this time, he realizes the woman is not Evie, but Danish. He then looks at Danish and she is now the same woman he saw in the picture, not Evie. Laurie then asks him why he ran out of Jarden his responsibilities a week before the 7-year anniversary. She then asks if he and Nora are okay. He gets upset and before hanging up the phone, he says, “Ask John about the fucking book he wrote about me.”

o Kevin calls Laurie because he knows that she is sane and can help talk him off the ledge. Part of Kevin wants to escape his crazy life but this clearly shows that another part of him just wants peace and sanity.

o Why does Kevin see Evie, instead of the Muslim woman? Does all of this happen because Kevin is meant to meet up with his father later or is it just coincidence?

o The Assassins book references the International Assassin episode again to show a link between what he experienced then with what he’s experiencing now. This is all connected.

Nora and the Low Amplitude Denzinger Radiation Machine

While Nora is waiting at the bus stop, a woman approaches her. The woman says she has an interview and couldn’t find a babysitter. She said that she would only be a few minutes while interviewing. Nora reluctantly accepts knowing her bus is on the way. When the bus arrives immediately after, she asks it to wait while she rushes inside and gives the woman her baby back during the interview. She hops on the bus and goes to a vacant industrial park.

• When Nora arrives, she sees two women doctors next to a piano in the middle of a big room. The doctors’ names are Dr. Aden and Dr. Becker who are actually physicists. They are playing a game of Name That Tune and Dr. Aden is playing Take On Me by A-ha. Dr. Aden and Dr. Becker are doing the good cop/bad cop routine. Dr. Becker, when she doesn’t want Nora to hear her speaks in Dutch to Dr. Aden. They bring her to Bernard to conduct a physical exam. As Nora learns, Bernard has already obtained her medical information illegally. Nora is then given an isolation test to see how she reacts in similar conditions if she were to undergo the procedure with the radiation machine. After this test, she is questioned by Drs. Aden and Becker. Dr. Becker thinks that Nora will get cold feet and not follow through with the procedure, but not because of Kevin.

• The final question we were all waiting for comes:

“Two infant twins are born. One of them will grow up to cure cancer, but only if one of them dies now. You don’t have to kill the baby yourself, but you do have to nod to make it happen. Do you nod?”

Nora replies in a matter of fact tone, “Kids die every day. What’s one more? Of course (she would kill the baby). Her answer is different that the man who set himself on fire but both are told they are wrong or it’s all bs to begin with. Nora was able to piece together that the baby that was given to her at the bus stop was also part of the test. She asked a lot of questions and Dr. Becker seemed to not like her at all. When Nora answered, Dr. Aden clearly appeared dejected.

o Nora’s answer to the question may be related to the earlier exchange. Maybe they were looking for honesty or something else? Maybe they didn’t like how cold she was in her response to the question or didn’t believe her because she helped the woman earlier? Or maybe it is not what you answer, but how you answer. Nora’s response was cold.

o What is the point of the test? What about the test would indicate whether someone is qualified? Qualified how?

o Who are conducting these tests and why? What if anything do the scientists get out of this?

o Is she deep down hanging on to something in this reality and thus not a good candidate in terms of this experiment?

Hotel Redux

Nora is back at the hotel and a bit frantic as she searches for, finds and lights a cigarette to Kevin’s surprise as he walks in the room. Nora agitatedly tells Kevin that she was rejected and in a vengeful tone wants to catch the scientists. She makes it seem that it was more job-related than a personal ordeal. They get into an argument and Kevin tells Nora he feels unable to confide in her about the things that are going on inside of him like when he saw ghosts like Pattie (and his recent psychotic episode) because last time she handcuffed him to the bed and left (and more importantly he doesn’t feel safe). He says, “That’s what we do. We don’t f–king talk about anything.” It takes a downward spiral fast and they really tell each other how they feel. She argues that he is letting the Messiah treatment by Matt and the others get to his head. Nora also blames Kevin for letting her give Lily up and mocks his desire to have children with her. In an act of defiance, Kevin lights the Book of Kevin on fire and places it into the sink saying he resents being anointed Jesus Christ Super Star. The smoke alarm goes off and they don’t care.

• The most gripping drama in the whole episode and insight into Nora’s issue was when Kevin tells her that she won’t move forward and accept her fate. He said, “You can’t have a kid, because then you’d have no excuse. You couldn’t be a victim anymore. You’d have to be okay. No one would feel sorry for you.” As the flames rise, on his way out he said coldly, “You should go be with them (her dead kids).” She completely melts at this point and Kevin grabs his bag and leaves.

o This was Nora’s last hope of reuniting with her children in her mind and she couldn’t move on and start again. She couldn’t get over it as Kevin aptly points out.

Reunion of the Kevins

As Kevin leaves the hotel the alarms appear to grow louder. He goes to the valet and asks for a cab but he says there are none available due to an explosion. In confusion, he looks around and is seen by his father who gets out of a Grace’s truck. He looks at him and says, “Jesus” in an exasperated tone. (Foreshadow?) Kevin, Sr. spotted him on G’Day Melbourne when he was looking for who he thought was Evie. Kevin, Sr. tells him that he was calling around at the hotels looking for him ever since. Kevin, Sr. tells Kevin that he can’t return to the United States because all the flights are grounded, presumably due to the explosion. He gets in the truck.

o What is the explosion from? The two possibilities that I can think of both involve radiation. One being some kind of nuclear event or maybe it has something to do with the radiation machine that the physicists were using to send people to be with the departed.

o The 7-year anniversary of the departure where a lot of people think that something is going to occur again might actually happen through a nuclear holocaust caused by people who either believe the world will end and/or want it to end. This would be the perfect story for the show. While everyone is looking for some rapture-like event depart or reconnect with their loved ones, mankind would actually be responsible for the new departure.

The Tears of Nora

We return to the hotel room with a close-up of Nora bent over and the water from the sprinklers drowning out the tears, while also making it look like eternal tears flowing from her eyes. This is a beautiful yet haunting and tragic image, representing profound grief and despair. We hear the regular version of Take On Me by A-ha as it fades out over the credits.

o This sets up the end of episode one well where you can see why Nora would deny knowing Kevin when the nun asks her at the church. She looks like she is just going through the motions of living.

o Is this the last time we see Nora until we catch up to the end of episode 1?

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