Trying – Mother’s Day

By: Gladys Luna

On Mother’s Day, Princess (Scarlett Rayner) and Tyler (Cooper Turner) show up at Nikki (Esther Smith) and Jason’s (Rafe Spall) room to surprise her with a gift interrupting the couple that appears to have been kissing under the blankets. Given that the teenagers didn’t agree about what kind of ink color to use to write the cards, they have decided to prepare one each. Tyler gives her money as a gift while Princess gives her flowers. After reading both cards, Nikki feels touched by the gesture and when they leave the woman expresses her concerns to her husband about Princess’ note where she referred to her as “Nikki” and not as “mom,” but the man calms her down saying that maybe she is reading this way too much.

In the meantime, Scott (Darren Boyd) is excited about his new podcast “Scott of the Atlantic” in which he talks with adventurous people and explorers and how they had overcome their challenges. He has even made tote bags with his face, but Karen (Sian Brooke) does not seem to be quite comfortable with her husband’s decision much less with carrying his face all over town. Little does she know that he has also printed his face on the car door that she is about to use. On the other hand, Jason and Anthony (Javone Prince) have taken their football team to “Escape World” as a way to encourage the team work, but as expected,the kids [D’Angelou Osei-Kissiedu, Oscar Wallwork, Alex Ranganathan, Sienna Sayer and David Kapfunde] do not behave well and spend the entire time making fun of the Gamesmaster (Rasmus Hardiker) while he gives the instructions of the game.

Karen, Nikki, Princess and Jilly (Marian McLoughlin) have arrived to the spa and intend to spend a great and relaxing day. Karen instructs Jilly that she will be using her friend’s membership card and the woman immediately turns into a ball of nerves thinking that the staff might discover that she is not the actual owner of the membership. Everyone gets into the spa while Jilly is left behind doing her check-in, which at first does not work but then her prior services record appears and she is offered the usual services to which she agrees without actually knowing what she is signing for. Back at the escape room Jason suggests Anthony to give some space for the kids to interact with one another and when they try to join the group again they get lost and end up at the manager’s office thinking that this is actually the escape room they should be at. Karen and Nikki catch up about each other’s life while Princess excuses herself to go swimming. This is when her mother takes the opportunity to tell Karen that Princess has been acting weird lately, but the woman pretends that she hasn’t noticed. Right then, a therapist (Ruxandra Porojnicu) enters the room looking for Jilly to take her to the next session in which she will have a hot cups therapy.

Scott has decided to invite Sally Trent (Lu Corfield), the author of the book Life at Sea, to his podcast and tells her how she inspired him to row across the Atlantic. The conversation starts well but soon takes an unexpected turn when she starts discussing about the dangers of embarking in such adventure and realizes that Scott hasn’t truly read the full book and is completely unaware of all the dangers she faced during her trip. The man tries desperately to change the subject and focus on the good things, but it is evident that Sally’s revelations are starting to get to him creating doubts about whether he should go or not on this trip.

Jason and Anthony have turned the office upside-down looking for clues that would help them out of there. Thinking they can get some answers out of used coffee cups and yogurt containers taken out of the trash, but it is until they find a post-it with a code written on it when they are finally able to open a janitor’s closet in which they find a box that according to them instructs them to remove the false ceiling and find their way out. But it is then when the office manager (Donavan Imber) comes in surprised at the mess they have created. Meanwhile, the kids have shown zero interest in playing the game as they are scattered all over the escape room completely lost in their cellphones. The Gamesmaster calls them through the speaker and gives them some clues, but as the kids have no idea of how the game works, they believe he’s spying on them and demand him to open the door or otherwise they will accuse him of being as stalker. When Jason and Anthony are escorted back to the lobby of the place, they are happy to see that the kids are now getting along well and have won the game.

At the spa, Jilly has finally finished her therapy and we can see the woman’s back all marked in red due to the hot cups. Before she has the chance to compose herself, she is called into another room by a therapist (Alex Batareanu) who promises to give her a Russian massage. Karen takes the opportunity to look for Princess and takes her to a sauna room to ask her to talk to Nikki about what she’s been doing behind her back – ignoring that the woman is actually in the same room but all covered in haze and now is aware of everything. Sometime after Nikki looks for Karen demanding some answers about what she heard and, although the woman tries to explain why she helped Princess to go in search of her birth mother without telling her, the conversation escalates quickly and the two friends end up hurting each other and screaming what they truly think of one another. Nikki goes to get a massage and Princess joins her. Princess apologizes to her for lying, but the woman pretends to be ok with the whole situation. Princess feels relieved for having told the truth and closes the conversation by calling her “Mom.” Both of them try to hold hands, but they are too far so the masseuse (Borislava Stratieva) that witnessed the encounter stands in the middle of them and holds their hands.

The next day Jason and Nikki have a conversation with their daughter about what happened and they assure her that all they want is for her to be happy and not to end up hurt. Princess tells them that she’ll go to leave some flowers at Bev’s (Clare Higgins) grave given that she’d probably have no one to do that for her. In the meantime, Nikki puts Tyler and Princess’ cards over the chimney. Scott looks for all the possible dangers that he might find at the Atlantic Ocean and Jilly prepares a massage for John (Roderick Smith). When Princess arrives at the graveyard, she notices that another bouquet of fresh flowers has been delivered and when she reads the card that came with it she sees that it was from Kat and that it has a flower shop address on it.