Last Man Standing: Episode 9

Writer: Marieke Hardy
Director: Steve Jodrell

Plot Synopsis: Camerons mother is having trouble dealing with her separation from his father and asks to spend time at his house while he is away on what is supposed to be a boys weekend. Cameron is forced to accept that his mother is actually an adult with emotions, something he had never seen in the rigid exterior she presents to the world.

Taia moves in to the apartment above Adam.

Bruno is facing a dilemma. His new woman, Princess Leila is saving herself for marriage, but it’s becoming apparent that while she doesn’t object to Bruno going south of the equator, she seems to have no interest in getting out her passport and visiting Bruno’s locale. The taste is the issue for her, so she offers to work it manually, but apparently lacks the skill.

A planned boys weekend falls apart when Bruno lets it slip to Zoe that they are going away to a large beach house. The boys weekend suddenly changes into a couples retreat with Cameron and Adam joined by Bruno and Princess Leila, Zoe and Ollie, Mark and Charlotte, and Clare with her son.

While on the weekend away, Cameron criticises Clare of not liking him. She says Cameron lacks a moral code. At the end of the episode, Cameron returns home early to spend time with his mother – another step in the maturing of Cameron as he realises his mother is a woman also.

Adam is sitting in a spa with Zoe at the holiday house when he announces he is in love with her. As she deals with the shock of it, Clare enters and sits between them. Later she confronts Adam and tells him that its unfortunate that he has an interest in her as she is with Ollie now.

The audience knows better.

Thoughts: Last Man Standing interested me as a series as it works counter to most other shows of this genre. Its a relationship drama that has little interest in playing up to its female audience. The men in the show are depicted as the pathetic, insecure, grotty boys that we really are, yet still depicting them as romantic ideals. They’re real (to an extent) and flawed. The show explores romance and relationships through the eyes of the male leads, along with their behaviours.

The character of Cameron embodies the shows exploration of masculinity in modern day Australia. He is very much your typical chauvinistic ladies man. He doesn’t treat women poorly, but he certainly does treat them as objects. Camerons arc within the series is to develop and grow as a man. He’s lost his first wife as a direct result of not respecting her. His path is not redemption, but rather to allow him to mature enough to learn from the mistakes he has made and to equip him to be a better man.

What infuriated me about this episode is how little time they gave Cameron in this episode. When you consider the point of his character arc, to give such little time to a defining moment in his relationship with his mother was criminal. I’d hate for the show to overtly come out and beat us over the head with it, but a few more character moments with them would have been nice.

Likewise, Brunos relationship with Princess Leila was given the short shrift. Princess Leilas two-episode story-arc looked at the way that a relationship is tested when one partner has chosen to save themself for marriage. Can love find a way when the physicality is denied? The problem with the arc was that it seemed meaningless as we had very few opportunities to see their relationship outside of the bedroom. Both Princess Leila and Bruno believed they were a good match, yet the viewer never got the chance to see if that was true. It would have been good to see this storyline stretched out over a few more episodes (if only to have some more screentime with the super-pretty Roslyn Oades).

A show like this always walks a fine line between trying to provide substantial moments on screen for the characters and moving storylines along quick enough to maintain the interest of casual viewers. This was an episode which could have spent a little bit more effort on the former for the betterment of the series as a whole.

Recurring: Kat Stewart returns as Clare. Princess Leila (Roslyn Oades) finishes her two-episode stint on the show. Fletcher Humphrys is again around as the always irritating Anto. Chich, Mark, Charlotte, and Ollie also register some screentime. The only recurring actor that is sorely missed in this episode is Greg Fleet as Boxy. It’s hard to imagine a boys weekend away where they haven’t invited him.