The Heart Guy

    Season two of The Heart Guy was hard for me to get through.  After watching the first disc, I was not excited to go on with the rest of the season.  But I did, and the season improved.  Until a specific character showed up, making me question my continuing with the series at all.

    Life at the hospital in Whyhope has not been easy since Hospital Administrator Penny Cartwright (Hayley McElhinney) left.  The new administrator, Nora (Helen Thomson), is mean, conniving, insulting, and a bad doctor.  She is a malpractice suit waiting to happen.  Actually, I’m surprised there wasn’t a malpractice suit after she gives Dr. Hugh Knight’s (Rodger Corser) father the wrong blood, permanently damaging his kidneys.

    Wanting to get rid of Nora, hospital employees Ken Liu (Charles Wu) and Betty Bell (Belinda Bromilow) ask Hugh to help them come up with a plan.  Hugh agrees, but ends up being blackmailed by Nora.  It takes a lightning strike and the threat of police to finally get rid of her.

    By this time, Penny is willing to take back her old job.  Despite being incredibly happy with her life and career in Sydney, she lets it all go for the sake of her son.  Her new boyfriend, Toke (Angus McLaren), a doctor himself, refuses to let her go.  They decide to give a long-distance relationship a try.  This, of course, upsets Hugh.  He does whatever he can to break Penny and Toke up.  Including using her son Floyd (Winta McGrath).

    At the moment, Hugh is an odd mix of behaviors.  On one hand he has gone back to the incredibly selfish ways he had when he first came to Whyhope.  Yet, at the same time, his compassion as a doctor has increased.  It’s hard to know which side of Hugh will appear at which time.

Tugs of the Heart/Artwork by Kate Dorsey

    In the meantime, Hugh’s mother, Meryl (Tina Bursill), is preparing to take over as mayor.  The problem is, Hayley, (Chloe Bayless), her assistant, has found two uncounted ballot boxes.  At first Meryl tells Hayley to say nothing about them.  Then she orders Hayley to destroy the boxes, but Hayley can’t bring herself to do that.  Eventually Hayley feels she must turn the boxes in.  When she tries to, everything goes greatly awry.

    The boxes are discovered by the police, and the ballots are counted.  Meryl is still the winner, but these boxes have brought up too many questions.  With a new police officer in town investigating, Darren Ngata (Uli Latukefu), Meryl feels the need to resign in order to protect herself and Hayley.  The only way she will do this is by claiming ill health.  With Hugh’s help, she fakes a heart attack.

    Hayley spends much of the season feeling guilty.  Not only about the ballot boxes, but also because she has sex with her boyfriend, Meryl’s son, Ajax (Matt Castley).  She vowed to wait until she was married.  Something her parents constantly remind her of the importance of.  Now that she hasn’t, she feels guilty and worries about how she has sinned.

    Ajax is thrilled he and Hayley have had sex.  He takes this as a sign they should get married, despite his not even being eighteen years old.  Hugh is dead set against Ajax marrying, but Ajax proposes anyways.  Hayley accepts.

    The marriage plans begin to fall apart when Ajax finds himself attracted to another girl, Millie (Madeleine Madden).  Instead of staying away from Millie until the attraction fades, as his brother, Matt (Ryan Johnson), suggests, Ajax agrees to help her with a beauty pageant.  His attraction to Millie grows, and he tells Hayley about it.  In return, Hayley calls off their relationship.

    Ajax really should have listened to Matt.  He’s not perfect at relationships, but he’s better than Hugh, who Ajax did listen to.  Once again, this season I feel terribly for Matt.  Despite all the work he does for his family and their business, he will not be the one to inherit when his father, Jim (Steve Bisley), dies.  Hugh will.  Then Ajax.  Once again, despite doing all the work, Matt gets nothing.

    Then there’s Matt’s relationship with his wife, Charlie (Nicola da Silva).  They have finally gotten over her residual feelings for Hugh, but I’m still not sure she actually likes Matt.  She’s always insulting him, and taking cracks at him, even after he helps her self-publish her book.  It’s the way everyone treats Matt.  I don’t know why he doesn’t pack up and leave town permanently.  Find some place where he’ll be appreciated.  Maybe one day he will.

    With all this going on, the Knights must also deal with Jim needing a kidney transplant.  He is a rare blood type, and the only available kidney is given to someone else.  Hugh is left as the only suitable donor.  He agrees to donate his kidney.

    After the surgery, Hugh has a heart attack.  He is saved by Penny, who stays by his bedside afterwards, only leaving to take a phone call.  While she is gone, Hugh’s estranged wife, Harriet (Genevieve Hegney), comes into the room.  It is Harriet Hugh sees when he wakes up.

    Harriet is the reason I almost stopped watching this series.  She has all the characteristics of Nora, but worse because she pretends to be a good, nice person.  She is not.  Harriet is completely self-absorbed and selfish.  She even tries to get Hugh to betray Penny by changing the terms of the partnership deal they created over an invention.  With Harriet, Hugh’s behavior is worse than ever.  He directs the bad behavior at Ajax and Penny the most.  Something Ajax does not take well.

    I had to look ahead to see if Harriet was going to become a regular cast member in future seasons.  I looked after she had been on the screen for maybe ten minutes.  That’s how much I disliked this character.  Thankfully she was only in about two episodes of the second season and seems to be in very little of the third.  If it turned out she was going to be a regular cast member, I don’t think I would have finished season two.

    Thankfully, Hugh does finally get his head straight about Harriet, as well as his relationship with others in his life.  We also get to see Meryl actually care for someone other than herself.  First with Hayley, then with Jim as he battles his illness.  Ajax is always caring, just on the lost side.  Matt, he cares all the time and gets kicked for it.  I hope things improve for him soon.