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This Life writer Maxim Morin dissects Natalie’s “Scanxiety”

Spoiler warning: Do not read this article until you have seen This Life Episode 205, “Scanxiety.”

For a season and a half, This Life‘s Natalie Lawson has been living under the assumption she is dying. However, in Sunday’s “Scanxiety,” co-written by showrunner Joseph Kay and Maxim Morin, Natalie received encouraging test results from her drug trial–and discovered her fate may not be as certain as she believed.

“We wanted to allow [Natalie] to realize what this new normal is, and what that is is a new chance at life, at a longer life than she thought she was going to have,” explains Morin. “So that’s really exciting, but with that comes the kind of Spiderman responsibility of being true to what the story is about and what the show is about, which is, ‘How do you live your life in the face of uncertainty and mortality?'”

“Scanxiety” is the first writing credit for Morin, who was This Life‘s script coordinator in Season 1 and got bumped up to junior story editor in Season 2.

“It was scary, it was fun, and I would do it again,” he says of writing the script.

Morin joins us by phone from Toronto to tell us more about his debut episode and what Natalie’s surprising test results could mean for the rest of the season.

You co-wrote this episode with Joseph Kay. What was that like for you?
Maxim Morin: There were a lot of things we were trying to get across, and I felt–and we all felt collectively in the room–the pressure to showcase it. It was scary in that way in one respect, but it was also super freeing, because [Joseph] will never admit this, but he’ll teach you things you don’t even know you’re being taught in the moment, but then you’ll reflect on it, and you’ll be like, “Wow.” Those are what I like to call his John Keating moments. They’re so not intentional or conscious. He’ll just be very, very open to new ideas and the whole room is that way. As a collective, we hear each other out, and we respect each other’s ideas. We’re able to express ourselves in the places where we’re designated to write.

Natalie doesn’t find out her test results until the very end of the episode. Was there a conscious effort to build the audience’s tension and anxiety by making us wait the entire episode alongside Natalie?
When you have this kind of illness, a lot of the time it’s hurrying up and waiting, you’re going to go on this treatment and then we just kind of have to wait and see. And we wondered, how do people wait? How do you wait for that piece of news in that envelope or in that file folder sitting in a hospital or in a clinic in a doctor’s office? How do you wait for that? And so we wondered how Natalie would wait for that, and what we discovered is that there’s no good way to go about this. This was her way, just to do what she had planned, because obviously the news of whether this treatment was going well or not well was going to exacerbate all the tension that’s been building up this season. That idea of waiting that you touched on was something we were really cognizant of and we were really curious about.

The scene where Tia admits to Natalie that she isn’t ready to die is pretty raw and real. What were discussions like in the writers’ room regarding that moment?
The development of that scene, the room had to look at how they themselves would deal with or would act like or say in the face of imminent death. And so it got really personal, and it got really emotional. And I think what we collectively agreed upon, or definitely could relate to was this idea that, no matter how prepared you are, no matter what steps you have taken–and Natalie and Tia have both taken a lot of steps, as we’ve seen–there’s no way for you to be completely at ease at the end. Discovering that collectively as a room was really intense but also really, really rewarding. And that scene took a lot of work by committee to try to get it to a place where it felt authentic and true.

Natalie gets very good news regarding her clinical trial, learning she’s in partial remission and could possibly even survive. What should viewers expect from her health going forward?
Natalie and her entire family have been living in this one mode for such a long time now, for a season and a half basically. They’ve been living in this bunker of, ‘The pillar of our family is facing life’s biggest challenge’, and once that air is lifted off this idea, once that certainty is lifted, how are they going to react, knowing full well that they’ve spent so much time planning and organizing around this idea that Natalie will no longer be a part of this family? How are they going to react to that? I think it’s not as black and white as, ‘Okay, this is good news, so we should all be happy about this and make life go back to normal, as it was before the diagnosis.’ I don’t think there is a normal anymore for the Lawsons.

Matthew and Nicole are moving forward with their separation, and Matthew moved into his new apartment. Where is his head now that it appears his attempts to save his marriage have failed?
Matthew has always been a fixer, he’s always wanted to repair the damage that’s been done, no matter how much more damage it will create. Internally, he believes he’s doing the right thing, and I think Nicole gets an air of that when she goes to Beatrice’s house. The plan is misguided–completely misguided–he’s just trying to yield the result that he’s just trying to do the human thing here and be a father to his son. And now that Matthew’s thrown the Hail Mary pass with terrible results, he’s ready to move on with his life a little bit.

There are flashback scenes of teenage Maggie witnessing her parents fighting. Why was that important to portray now?
I think Maggie has always had this trouble with intimacy. In Season 1, we explored that a lot with her polyamorous relationship. In the end, she kind of diverted away from that potential intimacy. And this season, she’s created this false relationship with this guy, that is basically the opposite of intimacy. And we really want to narrow in on this point of, ‘Well, how’d she get that way?’ Because Maggie is super singular in that way, almost to the point where it was difficult to see where these things came from, and I think we really took a step back, really went into her past, dug through that, and we started to ask, ‘Well, what must of it been like to live in this household?’

What we kind of fell upon and discovered and talked about was this idea that she grew up in a place that was an intimacy vacuum, so to speak. And I think in that scene, we get just a little snippet of that experience. We realize that Janine and Gerald’s marriage was not perfect. It’s at a different place now, but back then it was not perfect. And I think it informed the way she related with this idea of intimacy moving forward. We just wanted to give the audience a glimpse of why she is the way she is.

Maggie and Raza end up sleeping together. What’s going on with them?
What happened at the end of the episode is they connect physically, they have sex, and these are two people who have shown each other one of their cards in the hole, so to speak. Raza admitted that his parents don’t know about the marriage. He’s sharing a slice of himself. And Maggie has been an open book since the start of their fake marriage. So these are two people who have kind of shared a lot with each other, aren’t afraid to tell each other what they think, but still have that respect for one another that Maggie feels she isn’t getting from the rest of her family . . . But what will happen–and is more a marker of their relationship, their fake marriage building into something–is this idea of how much more vulnerable they’ll be with one another, and that takes us to surprising places.

Oliver used an unconventional approach to get his art in front of Alexis. Is this a step forward for him?
He got what he wanted from that situation, which was just to be seen, and so that was a small victory for Oliver. I think for us, the viewer, looking down at this we’re like, ‘What are you thinking? You’re like putting all your stuff in there, setting up your installation.’ For a lot of people, that would be grounds to call the cops, and a lot of people would have. But to Oliver’s credit and to his art’s credit, she took a moment and she looked at it and I think there was a glimpse there where we’re with her and we’re like, ‘What is this exactly? I don’t know, but it’s kind of cool.’ So I would argue that it’s almost a little bit of a victory for him even though the means he took to get there were very misguided.

What was your favourite part of the episode to write?
Can I say the entire fourth act? I just love it. The whole back quarter of this episode for me, it evokes the best things about this show for me. I mean–especially when [Natalie] is sitting with Dr. Lyle and getting this news–everything from the direction to the sound to the dialogue to everything, it really just sings in that scene. It’s just so simple. We stay on her, we see her reacting to this news, and we’re just still. Everything is just still. And from there, we kind of launch into this wonderful sequence of letting go. And when she returns Jude the cat, and you have “Downtown” by Majical Cloudz playing overtop, it’s hard to retain any sense of straightfaceness, you know? Bye, bye composure. It was a pleasure having to work on every part of this episode, and it’s a credit to the writers on the team, the crew, obviously the cast, the director. I’m really proud of it.

This Life airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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Jealousy rears its head on Heartland

It’s not often that an episode of Heartland goes by without some closure. A problem or issue arises and by the end of the hour things are almost always settled and Sunday concludes with some great song as the credits roll.

Alas, though we got a fantastic closing tune by Reuben and the Dark called “Heart in Two,” there were strings left hanging. “The Green-Eyed Monster,” written by Bonnie Fairweather, was—as expected given the episode title—dealt with jealousy between horse and human and human and human.

For Amy, it meant realizing she’s spent so much time focusing on keeping busy while Ty has been away that Spartan went neglected. The result was an irritated horse that stumped Jack and Amy. It wasn’t until Amy began working with mounted archer Norah and her horse, Doc, that she understood: Doc was jealous of Norah’s infant son and Spartan was upset with Amy because she was neglecting him. Her solution was to take Spartan into the woods and work on liberty training; paired with “Heart in Two” it made for a stunning and emotional final scene as they reconnected.

Sadly for Georgie and Adam, there was no happiness for them. Adam, who has evolved from standoffish genius to an emotional boyfriend, assumed Georgie was seeing Clay and jealously spurned her. As much as I want to be angry at Adam for his actions, I totally get it. Being in a relationship at that age is an all-consuming thing and you want to be with them 24/7. But smothering the person you love isn’t the answer and these two are going to have to figure out the right mix or things will be over.

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Speaking of over, Mitch and Lou certainly seem to be. One of the frustrating things about some of the Heartland characters is their stubbornness and unwillingness to let the other person speak. That was certainly the case with Lou, who assumed Mitch’s coldness while fly fishing meant he doesn’t like her. Of course, that’s not the case—the dog tags mean Mitch was remembering fishing with a friend who’s no longer alive—but she wouldn’t let him explain and, honestly, he didn’t try hard enough.

The only person who had anything go right was Jack. After Lisa accidentally chucked his stew jar it was recovered. Well, at least there was that.

Heartland airs Sundays at 7 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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Link: 5×5 With The Hook: Bea Santos and Daniel Maslany

From You’ve Been Hooked:

Link: 5×5 With The Hook: Bea Santos
“I have a lot of respect for Louise’s career focus. I love how driven, and maybe a little bit pushy, she is. In terms of being passionate about what we do we are the same. It will also be revealed in later episodes that we have some surprising cultural similarities. Can’t really elaborate, you’ll just have to watch!” Continue reading.

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Link: 5×5 With the Hook: Daniel Maslany
“It was a very collaborative effort and evolution from start to finish. Simon’s writing of Watts was fantastic, and very rewarding to be able to bring to life. He created this character with many quirks and peculiar opinions but they all felt grounded in a believable and playable reality.” Continue reading. 

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This Life 205: Natalie deals with “Scanxiety”

In Sunday’s new episode of This Life, Natalie faces “Scanxiety” as she awaits the first test results from her drug trial. Meanwhile, Matthew and Nicole make a big decision about their marriage, and Raza and Maggie receive an unexpected lunch invitation from Janine.

Here’s a preview.

Raza is in the hotseat
Janine and Gerald invite their new son-in-law over for an awkward lunch. Hamza Haq makes the most of his extended screen time.

Matthew and Nicole try to move on
The estranged couple moves forward with separation plans, which leads to some soul-searching moments for both.

Oliver takes a risk
We still don’t know what’s going on with Oliver’s mental health, but he isn’t giving up on breaking into the Montreal art scene.

Natalie is in for an anxious wait
As she nervously awaits the results of her latest scan results, Natalie visits various family members and friends. Which leads us to…

Torri Higginson’s finest moments of the season (so far)
If you aren’t sniffling (or downright bawling) at the end of the episode, I don’t know if we can remain friends. Higginson is simply perfect in the closing scenes.

This Life airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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This Life’s Rick Roberts on Matthew’s marriage mess

When CBC’s This Life premiered last year, conservative, reliable Matthew Lawson appeared to have the perfect life with his loving wife Nicole (Marianne Farley) and their daughter, Abby. A season and a half later, his marriage is on the rocks after Nicole discovered he had an affair—and a son—with another woman.

Last week, Matthew made a last-ditch effort to win Nicole back by introducing her to his secret family. The move was jaw-dropping, but actor Rick Roberts sees a certain steadiness in his character’s approach to cleaning up his mess.

“What I admire about Matthew is it seems like he continues to make terrible decisions, but he doesn’t leap into those decisions,” Roberts says.

The Hamilton, Ontario, native also appreciates the way the show’s writers have handled the meltdown of Matthew and Nicole’s marriage.

“They still manage to keep upping the stakes on the complications and being very, very truthful, not tipping over into melodrama, and not just dropping the ball and resolving everything and moving on to something else,” he says. “They really investigate the drama.”

Joining us by phone from Toronto, TV and stage veteran Roberts tells us what to expect from Matthew in the second half of Season 2.

Matthew’s life has changed a lot since the first season, when he was seen as the most stable and responsible Lawson sibling. Did you know he was going to get such a meaty storyline when you started the series?
Rick Roberts: I didn’t know. When I read the conundrum that he had put himself in, it’s one of those secrets that cannot be kept. It was somebody struggling against the inevitable, so that gave me a sense. Certainly, I recognize that people, when you put yourself in a situation—in that case, having a secret child, wanting to be in that child’s life, and wanting to keep it from his wife and not ruin his marriage—it’s one of those things that will never work, and he was kind of in denial right off the top of the show. So I didn’t specifically know where it was going to go, but I knew it had to go somewhere. It had to complicate itself.

Last week, Matthew made a desperate move to save his marriage by taking Nicole to meet Beatrice and Julian. Why did he think that was his best last-ditch plan?
I think, on the one hand, he correctly knows that in order for this to have any possibility of working, they would have know each other, and it would have to all be mutually agreed upon. Having said that, how he did it was not the way to do it. I think the reason he did it then is because Nicole kept saying, ‘We’re done, we’re done,’ and I think he saw it as his only option. Like it was to try, ‘If you saw the family, if you see these people and then you will see that it’s the right thing to do, and then we’ll move forward.’ And the horrible thing that happened was that she did see that he did have to commit to the other family and also that she was not going to be able to go down that road with him, which was the unforeseen thing for him.

The scene where Matthew is sitting between Beatrice and Nicole was so uncomfortable. Is filming something like that the most difficult day of the week or the highlight?
It’s a combination of the two because you emotionally put yourself in that situation, but it’s the best day of the week, too, because having scenes with those kind of stakes and that kind of drama and awkwardness are very, very fun to play. I also think it’s a sign of great writing when you can get those kind of stakes that feel like life or death stakes—very domestic, to do with people’s identity and their hearts and their sense of who they are—without pointing a gun at somebody. Marianne, I thought, just played that beautifully in that scene, just kind of watching things shatter around her psychologically.

This Life 204

And Matthew saying, ‘Tell her I don’t love you!’ was cringeworthy but riveting.
I know! I would love to be in the writers’ room, because he also withheld information from Nicole that sabotaged the whole thing. And this is a fun thing to think about as an actor, and I do believe this about people, that you subconsciously make things happen that you consciously say you don’t want to happen. I think bringing things to a crisis and bringing things to an impossible situation is not the healthiest way of saying, ‘We need to move on,’ but I also think it’s going to be their greatest opportunity, and it’s also kind of a gift to your partner in the sense that you do something irrevocable that makes everyone go, ‘OK, now we have to move into something else.’ But I think there are probably healthier ways to do it.

What I also love about Matthew is I go, ‘Oh, man, I wouldn’t do that,’ but then you take a few seconds and go, ‘Oh, OK, I could do something like that,’ or, ‘I’ve made decisions equally as bad.’ People are really like that when they are with themselves, they go, ‘Oh, fair enough, I’ve botched my life in equally bad ways when I really think about it.’

Now that Nicole has told Matthew she can’t go forward with him, what can you preview about Episode 205, “Scanxiety”?
I think for Matthew and Nicole, the first four episodes of Season 2 really bring to a conclusion the story of their marriage as it was, and the next things are really genuine steps out into a new world for both of them that involves how to relate to each other, how to parent, how you make the next move for yourself. I think it’s harder for Matthew. I know he really longs for the family to be back together, but I think he understands that all the old ways of doing that are not going to work.

And the great thing over the course of the season, but it begins in earnest in Episode 5, is I think that I want them to get back together, but I don’t want to feel cheated. When I was reading the scripts, I’m going, ‘Oh, I want this,’ but you want it to be satisfying, so you don’t want some little thing to happen that they get back together, or that they just give up completely. So it’s really just riding that line of two people that really still love each other and find themselves in an impossible situation.

You repeatedly have emotionally fraught scenes with Marianne Farley. You must have a tremendous amount of trust in each other as acting partners.
Marianne and I hit it off from Day 1. I feel completely at ease with her, and we completely trust each other. We also have a great rapport off camera, and we try to make that the bass note of love between us that really has to be there for all the other stuff to work, which is often quite antagonistic and lots of pain and anger around that. But Marianne is a great actor, and part of that is a real generosity. So we’re always checking in with each other to make sure the other person is OK, because sometimes you just kind of feel lonely if someone’s yelling at you. [Laughs.]

Matthew’s marriage problems could throw a kink in Natalie’s custody plans. Is he still capable of looking after Emma and Romy?
I do think Matthew would do anything to make that happen, but what are his actual capabilities? I’m curious to see where all that goes because now we have all the desires of the kids, and David, and Natalie, and it’s kind of shifting now . . . I think the short answer is I know he would definitely do whatever it takes to reassure Natalie that he is there for her.

What can viewers look forward to with Matthew in the second half of Season 2?
There’s some really beautiful writing around self discovery, solitude, what it means to love somebody, parenting, and I’m really in awe of the writers in terms of how they find drama in the minutiae of people’s behavior. And sometimes it comes down to the tiniest exchange of dialogue. So, to me, what was really interesting was the evolution of Matthew and Nicole’s relationship and how they come together, even though what does coming together look like? And if it works out. What I love about the writing is that they do stay very generous with each other and some big things happen in the season that are very, very, very difficult. It gets pretty dark towards the end, and how people show up for each other and two people who love each other navigate all of that. I think it’s really beautifully observed by the writers, particularly between Matthew and Nicole.

In addition to your extensive television career, you do a lot of theatre work. Do those two creative outlets nourish each other?
That’s a great way of putting it. They do really nourish each other, and I can’t imagine doing one without the other. I do love in theatre that immediate reaction that you get from an audience. But having said that, doing This Life, the reaction on the street is quite rewarding . . . The audience response on the street isn’t just, ‘I saw you on Suits!’ or ‘I saw you play the criminal on this.’ People come and talk about their lives or the difficulty in a certain episode or ‘Is he coming back?’ because they’re really hooked into the lives of the characters. It’s the next best thing to that live theatre reaction.

This Life airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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