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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 199976" data-attributes="member: 23">Episodes 222-227  (...continued)The young character who has grown the most this year is no doubt Roo, whose personality is almost unrecognisable compared with the manipulator we first met almost a year ago. Her anguished outburst to Skid after his racist put downs casts her in the role of the idealist:It’s unthinkable that Roo would have uttered these lines a few short months ago. The turnaround is dramatic and sudden, and almost hard to swallow. But it also makes sense with her experiences this year.Her comments to Skid came off the back of her relationship with David Lee. A relationship that forced Alf to look deep into his own heart:<img src="https://i.vgy.me/m7MeE0.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />After some reflection, and some soul searching helped by Ailsa, Alf speaks about the situation to Roo:There’s insightful discussion of “positive” racism after a conversation with Floss and Neville who go out of their way to mention how inclusive circus life is:<img src="https://i.vgy.me/dSJH2c.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />But Alf will get his wish after all.After spending several episodes trying to dispel myths around stereotypes, David reveals he’s about to enter an arranged marriage.It has that messy, unhappy ending that I like. All the same, it just feels far too convenient as far as the writing goes. The intentions may have been good when it came to tackling racism, but it’s far too dry. Most of it felt too dry and informative.To my mind, there’s little progressive about having a character who is solely defined by one aspect of their life and who is brought in to serve the plot while remaining very much an “other”. A “them” to the main cast’s “us”. If there was a Bechdel test for race, I’m not sure David would pass. Every scene he was in - or in which he was mentioned - had his race as the focus. This may have improved had he stayed. Instead, he came. He showed us that racism exists and is A Very Bad Thing. Then he left and it’s almost a moot point, because nobody actually deals with it. It simply goes away from view.It felt unsubtle and clunky for too much of the time. A little like watching an episode of Highway To Heaven. Which is a waste.However, as a means to hold up a mirror to the town and show aspects of small town life that are less than progressive, it worked. The conflict in the Stewart household was interesting (even if David felt almost incidental to it). And the revelation about David’s engagement showed Roo at her noblest in a way that was “hidden” from the main cast, so we know it to be truth:I also appreciated that Roo isn’t completely self-actualised. There were still some reflexive flashes of her bitchy side when David was telling her about his engagement. But she recognised it immediately and apologised. And I love that she’s still imperfect.</blockquote>

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