{"id":15870,"date":"2023-08-09T11:16:05","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T15:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/?p=15870"},"modified":"2026-03-25T02:00:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T06:00:41","slug":"agnes-and-the-cyclone-june-and-the-robber-baron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/agnes-and-the-cyclone-june-and-the-robber-baron\/","title":{"rendered":"Agnes and the Cyclone, June and the Robber Baron"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE LOST FLOWERS OF ALICE HART – Episodes 1 through 3 – (limited spoilers)<\/h4>\n
\"Tilda<\/a>

Agnes<\/p><\/div>\n

In each of these episodes we get the origin story of a main character, and each of them sounds like a smokescreen designed to hide the truth. The first is the story of how Alice<\/strong> (Alyla Browne<\/a>) was born. “Cyclone Alice had hit the coast,”<\/em> Alice is told by her mother Agnes<\/strong> (Tilda Cobham-Hervey<\/a>). “There was no way to get to the hospital. So I got out of the truck, and I squatted down, and I gave birth to you in the laneway, and Daddy wrapped you up in his shirt. But then he realised that I wasn’t breathing, and he was trying to force the air into my lungs. Then suddenly you began to cry, wailing into the night. You brought me back to life.”<\/em> <\/p>\n

\"Frankie<\/a>

Candy Blue<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology<\/a>, the only two cyclones named Alice that have struck Australia happened in 1976 and 1980. Alice is nine years old.<\/p>\n

Next, Candy Blue<\/strong> (Frankie Adams<\/a>) explains her own origin story to Alice. “June and Twig found me by the river and took me in. They’d taken Clem to the river to play, and they heard this sound of a baby crying. And there, in the reeds, in a basket, they found me, only hours old, wrapped up in a blue evening gown. They looked high and low for my mother, but they couldn’t find her anywhere. So they took me in. And Twig named me Candy after her fondness for sweets, and Blue after the colour of the gown.”<\/em> <\/p>\n

\"Asher<\/a>

Librarian Sally Morgan<\/strong> (Asher Keddie) is one of the tale’s more mysterious characters. Keddie told the Sydney Morning Herald<\/a>: “Sally is warm and intuitive. She feels comfortable in her own skin and with her life but there are her own secrets. There\u2019s so many secrets in this show. Hers have been suppressed for many years.”<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Twig<\/strong> (Leah Purcell<\/a>) is the life partner of Alice’s grandmother June Hart<\/strong> (Sigourney Weaver<\/a>). Together they run Thornfield<\/em>, a flower farm in the central Australian highlands that also functions as a home for dispossessed women. The place was started by Alice’s great-great grandmother Ruth<\/em> and was handed down through three generations of Thornfield women. After showing her the place, June tells Alice: “Maybe one day it will be yours.”<\/em> <\/p>\n

In episode three (titled “Lantern Bush<\/a>” and subtitled “hope may blind<\/a>“), Alice asks Candy: “Who was my dad’s dad?”<\/em> and gets this answer. “I only know what June told Clem and I when we were little. She called him the Robber Baron. They met at the river. She was swimming. She saw smoke and there he was camped out in a swag<\/a>. They spent this magical day together and then he disappeared. Then the next month, she saw smoke and there he was again, and every month on the same day they’d meet. And then one day he wasn’t there…the cops had caught these robbers who were stealing from the rich to give to the local poor. And June was pregnant with Clem, but she never saw her Robber Baron again.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Alyla<\/a>

Alyla Browne as Alice Hart<\/b> — Browne also stars as Verity<\/b> in Matt Drummond’s family adventure THE SECRET KINGDOM<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Alice is brought to Thornfield<\/em> after surviving a house fire that kills her parents. When the fire started, Alice was being beaten and choked by her father Clem<\/strong> (Charlie Vickers<\/a>) for setting fire to the shed. Just how the house went up in flames is uncertain, but Alice believes it was her fault. She was not severely burned, and though she recovers from the injuries she received in the beating, Alice loses the ability to speak. <\/p>\n

This sets the stage for an impressive performance from Alyla Browne<\/em> who is forced to convey a wide range of emotion with this handicap. Her best scene<\/strong> has to be at the river when Alice meets Oggie<\/strong> (Luc Barrett<\/a>), who once lived at the ranch with his mother Jana<\/b> (Victoria Haralabidou<\/a>), but now lives in town. When Alice sees something swimming beneath the surface of the water, she takes off her shoes and wades into the stream. This makes her remember a near-drowning experience she had when her father knocked her out of a rowboat, and gives her a panic attack. Fortunately, Oggie shows up and gets her breathing normally again. (He has experience at this sort of thing because his mother has asthma.)<\/p>\n

Oggie visits the flower farm regularly, but isn’t supposed to, and is afraid June will shoot him if she finds out.<\/p>\n

\"Alyla<\/a>

Oggie Novak<\/strong> pulls Alice<\/strong> out of the river and helps her breathe normally again.<\/p><\/div>\n

June’s custody of Alice is disputed by Sally Morgan<\/strong> (Asher Keddie<\/a>) because Agnes specified in her will that Sally should have custody of her children were June to be found unsuitable for that role. (That specification was in Agnes’ original will as well. It was not one of the recent additions.) Sally had a “fling” with Clem before marrying the local sheriff, but when their daughter Gemma<\/b> needed a transplant, neither she nor her husband were suitable donors, making her suspect that Clem was the father. Clem, however, refused to be tested, and like some evil Geppetto<\/a>, spent a great deal of time carving the girl’s likeness in wood as she died. <\/p>\n

Agnes was pregnant when she died. The baby was initially given little chance of survival, but later the boy’s chances of living are said to have increased greatly. <\/p>\n

\"Floriography,<\/a>

Floriography – the language of flowers<\/p><\/div>\n

Agnes began living at Thornfield<\/em> after her parents were killed in a car accident. (Someone at the flower farm must have been named as her guardian. Just how that came about is a mystery.) Agnes and Clem met there. June initially tries to keep this information from Alice, until Alice finds a note to her mother written by Clem<\/a> in a copy of Alice in Wonderland<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Others living at the flower farm are: May<\/strong> (Bree Bain<\/em>), Stella<\/strong> (Renee Lim<\/a>), Myf<\/strong> (Dalara Williams<\/a>), Rosie<\/strong> (Amy Kersey<\/a>), Vlinda<\/strong> (Halana Sawires<\/a>), and Boo<\/strong> (Maggie Dence<\/em>). Mae is described as June’s “second in command”. The symbolism of flowers is everywhere, and we learn that rosemary<\/a> is for remembrance, marigold<\/a> is for grief, basil<\/a> represents hatred, and Desert Pea<\/a> means “have courage; take heart<\/em>“, <\/p>\n

\"screenwriter<\/a>

Screenwriter Sarah Lambert<\/strong><\/a>‘s next project will be an adaptation of THE WHITE MOUSE<\/a>, the autobiography of Australian wartime legend Nancy Wake<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Holly Ringland<\/strong><\/a>, who wrote the novel on which the series is based<\/a>, told Gabby Etzel and Cathleen Freedman of Absolutely Anything<\/a>: “In Victorian times, not only did people send each other bouquets and flowers to express longing and love and friendship, but English people would send their arch nemesis this elaborate bouquet to say ‘Never speak to me again’, ‘You disgust me’,<\/em> [or] ‘I put a curse on your house,’ and this message would be delivered to this household with this spray of poisonous flowers like foxgloves and lilies…When I read that, I thought: ‘That is dark and I love it, and I wanna make it up using Australian native flowers! I want to embed that folklore in the Australian landscape and give it its own twist wherever appropriate’.” <\/em><\/p>\n

Describing a bouquet she is assembling, Boo tells us that: “firewheel<\/a> is ‘the colour of my fate’, Emu Bush<\/a> is ‘my hidden worth’, and paper daisies<\/a> mean ‘by your love I live and die’.”<\/em> She also says that phragmite<\/a> represents “dangerous pleasures<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

\n

THE LOST FLOWERS OF ALICE HART can be streamed on Amazon Prime<\/a>.<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE LOST FLOWERS OF ALICE HART – Episodes 1 through 3 – (limited spoilers) In each of these episodes we get the origin story of a main character, and each of them sounds like a smokescreen designed to hide the …<\/span> <\/p>\n

+<\/p>\n

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