2.5 Who’s Your Daddy? In time-honoured tradition too, the penultimate hour ended on a cliff-hanger that left a central character in mortal danger. On the same day that her adoptive dad swore he would lay down his life for her, Mary’s boyfriend tried to sacrifice her life for his. Will Puss pushing Mary into the path of a gun finally shake her free of his nauseating spell? One can only hope. Who’s Your Daddy? was an episode of secrets being laid bare. Miranda confessed she wasn’t pregnant. Robin told Miranda that Mary was dating Puss. Pyke learned his daughter was being pimped out. Miranda learned that her surrogate was not a student but a sex worker… None of it was a revelation to us (unlike Robin, we saw Adrian give that panda toy to Mahlee in episode one) but the central characters are now much less in the dark, which brought them closer together. Last series, Robin’s mother criticised her for mistaking hardness for strength. Last episode, Julia called her “a wasteland”. This week, Miranda says she’s broken-hearted and afraid to touch anyone. They’re all right to an extent, but our girl’s softening. Between her sisterly vow to find Miranda’s baby and her scenes with Pyke, she’s thawing out. Compare the last time we saw Robin getting head – standing up in a pub toilet – to this occasion. She’s graduated to a bed and to a man who, if you believe the words of Pyke’s psychic, might well be her “soul-lover”. That’s progress. If that two-hour kiss story is anything to go by, Pyke is pretty well-adjusted when it comes to intimacy. While Julia chips away at the family home, removing a saucepan here and a bundle of clothes there, he’s filling it with cooking, laughter, sex and everything that’s good. Pyke’s not only a symbolic provider of food (note this week’s breakfast goodies and homemade supper), he’s also a calm, loving presence. The antipathy I have for Puss is somehow cathartic. It feels good to feel this bad. Just imagine if Brett had got him with that gun. I’ve not wanted something this much since Mattel brought out those Betty Draper Barbie dolls. On a mythic level though, Brett killing Puss wouldn’t quite do it. True satisfaction would require Mary, or one of the girls Puss has had stuffed with rich-white-couple spawn, to finish him off. That would be poetically just. There was something poetic about Pixie’s death, staged with a confusing mix of grandeur (the music) and silliness (the baby’s dummy). Did she really kill herself or was she offed for her silence? If you were planning your suicide, why start chopping carrots? I have my suspicions about that Scottish doctor, but you may as well try to knit soup as predict where this gloriously unbridled series will end up. Who predicted, for instance, that Brett was an hallucination-level unhinged murderer? Compared to his pal ‘the fuck wizard’ (does one capitalise? It’s so hard to know), he seemed such a sweet kid. Right now, it could be revealed that Brett strangled Padma and I’d buy it. His photography session at the morgue wasn’t definitely off-kilter behaviour. Off-kilter behaviour is pretty much this series’ speciality. It’s an investigation of what it means to be a parent (biology or devotion, blood or love?) told through the medium of people who are sort of… broken. All six episodes of Top Of The Lake: China Girl are now available on BBC iPlayer. These episode reviews will run weekly so please keep spoilers for future episodes out of the comments, thanks. Read Louisa’s review of the previous episode, Birthday, here.
