In this pinball machine of an episode, Dara bounces all over the place and is none the wiser at the end of it whether things held together.
He starts with strange bodies in 1983’s Terms of Endearment before sharing some information about positive brain chemicals that he gleaned from social media. From there he reveals a surprise he has planned for his wife and daughter, who are returning home after 5 weeks away – he’s expecting a big reaction…
A sharp left turn takes Dara to the WWI poet Wilfred Owen and his last letter home to his mother. Amongst other, more conflict-based themes, it raises the question of whether the art of good letter writing has completely ceased to exist. Postcards and epistolary style seem a thing of the past.
There is time to briefly discuss James Kirk and James T. Kirk and James Cook – but what do these Jameses have in common?
Finally, two teenagers ensnared in a passionate kiss strike a compelling pose on Dara’s drive home, and they help to bring things full circle. Just about!
Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time podcast on Wilfred Owen: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001df48
Paul Daley on Captain Cook’s Cottage: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2020/mar/02/captain-cooks-cottage-the-place-he-didnt-ever-call-home
Wilfred Owen’s Last Letter to his mother: https://advancingpoetry.blogspot.com/2013/10/his-last-letter.html