Three Parts Hydrogen Peroxide, One Part Dish Soap
SURREALESTATE – Season 2 Episode 6 – SPOILERS
Abby (Natalie Brown) stops by the office and leaves papers for her brother Phil (Adam Korson) to sign. It seems their mother, who died a while ago, intended to leave two acres of land to the church but that didn’t get done, and Phil must now okay the property transfer. Phil doesn’t want to give something of significant dollar value to a church that chose to model the tolerant ministry of Christ by “tossing him out the narthex”. Phil and his husband Anthony (Paul Ewan Wilson) talk about it, and it becomes clear that a big part of the problem is sibling rivalry. Phil believes Abby was his mother’s favourite kid.
Abigail tells her third-favourite younger brother “Philly” the story of her son Ethan‘s first gig as an altar boy. “The cassock was a little too long. Ethan tripped. Body of Christ all over the place. He was devastated. He was so worried that Jesus would be mad at him.” Phil says that he “knows that feeling“, and later tells his sister: “Jesus doesn’t mind when you spill his body, but if you spill his blood, mix three parts hydrogen peroxide to one part dish soap. It gets the stains right out.”
Luke’s latest clients, Mina and Tariq Hasan (Elisa Moolecherry and Nabeel El Khafif) are engaged in a long-running (8-year) feud with Renata and Rowan Massey (Geneviève Steele and Tony Nappo). After Rowan pins a nasty note to Tariq’s front door with a knife, the Hasans decide to sell their home, and hire Luke. (Tim Rozon) to do it. Luke suggests a diplomatic solution. “You’d be surprised,” he tells the Hasans, “what a properly deployed muffin basket can achieve”.
The Massey’s respond by listing their house for sale with rival realtor Rita Weiss (Alison Brooks). The Hasan’s daughter Daria (Reine Faiad) describes the Masseys as “the antichrist next door”.
Appealing to Weiss’ business sense, Luke persuades her to allow Zooey (Savannah Basley) inside the Massey place to investigate what’s going on, and assigns Augie (Maurice Dean Wint) to investigate the Hasan house. When they meet afterward, Zooey and Augie quickly find themselves trading insults. Augie calls Zooey needy (something he did once before while possessed by a demon in Episode 1.7) and adds that she has “unnecessary metal” in her nose.
Zooey points out that Augie is bald, and that he has a preference for polysyllables. All pretty mild stuff, but when Augie suggests that she never really had a father, Zooey slaps him, and that brings both of them to their senses. The altercation points out the fact that the Massey/Hasan feud is contagious, but only infects people who have spent time on the warring properties.
Zooey will later admit that her nose metal is unnecessary.
Luke and Rita decide to use an upcoming block party to showcase the two houses. Rowan and Tariq get into a knife fight, while Renata and Mina wrestle, and Rita’s assistant Alvin (Michael Rhodri Smith) ends up being taken to hospital. The conflict seems to have no resolution until Phil discovers that a century ago, a misunderstanding between Parker, who raised cows, and Ambrose, who grew sorghum, led to an altercation in which several people died. “The blood ran into the post holes” of a fence Parker’s boys were trying to build. The fence was cursed, and it survived to become the root cause of the Massey/Hasan war. Luke takes an axe to the wooden barrier ending the conflict, and both houses are withdrawn from the market.
Abby and Phil have another talk, in the course of which Abby complains that Phil was always their mother’s favourite. Phil, who thought the opposite was true, is startled into submission, and, in the episode’s best scene, tells Anthony he agreed to sign the papers, giving the church the property.
PHIL: “I signed the damn papers over. Our ancestral land is going to be a vacation bible school, or a popemobile parking lot, or a place where they train Jesuits to fight in the octagon. Better get a nice fruit basket from the Vatican. Just wasn’t worth the fight, you know?
ANTHONY: “You’re a good person.”
PHIL: “Not really. But thank you. Oh, any word from the adoption people?”
ANTHONY: [shakes head sadly]
PHIL: “You gotta know, as much as you want this baby… and I do, too, we both do, don’t get me wrong… please don’t feel like we need a baby to be a family.”
Zooey is uncomfortable with selling houses and being besties with the likes of Rita Weiss. Augie suggests that she needs to grow up, which is the same advice she got from Luke last episode. Nevertheless, Zooey (somewhat courageously) tells Luke that being a real estate agent is not for her.
Faced with the need to hire another agent, Luke tries to call Susan (Sarah Levy) again, and gets this recorded message: “Hi. You’ve reached Susan Ireland. I’m on a bit of a sabbatical right now, so if you need immediate assistance, press one. Otherwise, leave me a message and roll the dice! Drink the wine! Because life is a mystery and the sun is only a morning star.”
Season 1 is available on DVD (zone 2) from Amazon UK.