Episode 1

## Episode Summary

Lucky Flynn hasn't spoken to his family in years. When he learns that his mother has only days left to live, Lucky sets off in a hire car to drive the 4,000km from Sydney to Perth to say goodbye.

## Synopsis

Warning - spoilers - expand to view

The episode opens with soft piano and rattling noises, while the camera is zoomed in on a yet to be seen object.  As the camera pans, we see that the object is a piano, which is covered with a tarp and being pulled on a trailer attached to a sedan and being driven down an empty desert road.  We then see the driver, a middle-aged man, (Tim Minchin) rapidly flipping between radio stations before finally turning it off.  The drivers phone dings and we see a message from Toby which says “mate, you’re running out of time”, followed quickly by another message telling him not to fuck this up.  The driver then turns around and reaches for a duffle bag in the back seat, unzipping a pocket and pulling out a small white box.  As the driver opens the box and fumbles with the contents, a pill falls out and onto the floor underneath him. He looks down and searches for the pill before pulling his head up as a car passes him going the other way and blaring its horn.  The driver then pulls onto the shoulder and finds his pill, washing it down with beer before pulling back onto the road.  Seconds later the driver is side swiped by a ute, causing his car to veer off into a tree, with the ute coming to rest across the road.  The driver gets out of the car, disoriented by seemingly ok and immediately rushes to check the piano. During this we can hear a female voice yelling in the background and as the driver goes to investigate, we see that the female voice belongs to the thirteen-year-old ute driver (Milly Alcock), who proceeds to chastise him for not watching where he was going.  The driver of the sedan starts to argue with her before both notice that she has broken her arm in the crash.  The sedan driver goes to get his phone, only to find it without signal, and the female tells him that he will have to drive her to hospital.  The man seems reluctant to leave without his piano (noting that the axle is gone so they cannot tow the trailer) but is prepared to do so before the female has him dig a trench between the trailer and the ute so they can put his piano on the back.
The scene then cuts to the two of them driving to the hospital and there is a frosty silence before the man asks the girl what her name is, and she tells him it’s Meg.  He then begins to tell her that his name is Lucky, short for Laughlin, before they are interrupted by a text on Lucky’s phone.  Both Lucky and Meg reach for the phone, but Meg grabs it and tells him that someone named Toby has sent him a message asking if he's on a plane.  Lucky then suggest to Meg that she should call her parents and let them know what happened, an idea which she shuts down immediately before redirecting the conversation to ask Lucky where he is taking the piano. He tells her he’s taking it to Perth and when she asks him why, he responds only with “I don’t have a choice”. The silence continues until Meg tells Lucky that she doesn’t believe in coincidences, telling him that she believes everything happens for a reason.  Lucky then unplugs Megs Ipod from the car and tells her the music is “doing his head in”, so Meg tells Lucky to distract her by talking to her or else she will turn the music back on.  Lucky proceeds to tell her the story of how the cellist from the band ELO was killed when a hay bale fell on his car, using this story to illustrate his belief that nothing happens for a reason and that one in a million things happen all the time.

Once at the hospital Meg tells the nurse that Lucky is her dad and is given intake forms while Lucky gets a text which is unseen by the audience, but which he responds to by saying “shit”.  Meg is called in to the exam room and Lucky tries to tell her that he has to go, but Meg tells him that if he leaves then she will tell the nurse that he’s a pedo, so instead he goes to the ATM to try and take out more money only to have his card taken by the machine for having insufficient funds. Lucky then goes to sit in the waiting room, taking out his phone and putting in headphones to drown out the noise.  On his phone we see a video of an older woman in a knit cap, telling Lucky that she is sending him this video in the hopes that he will see it, and we can hear a piano playing in the background.  Before Lucky can watch any more Meg drops her bag at Lucky’s feet, telling him that the doctors think her arm is broken but won’t be able to do an x-ray on it until a tech arrives in a few hours.  She offers Lucky a hit from the inhaled anaesthetic that she was given, and Lucky accepts, asking Meg where her real dad is.  Meg takes back the pen and inhales it while telling Lucky he’s at the pub. Lucky then stands to leave, but before he can Meg stops him by telling him that she is going to Kalgoorllie to see her mum and that he can drop her off there on his way to Perth.  Lucky refuses and leaves Meg at the hospital.  Outside Lucky makes phone calls to everyone he knows asking if they can lend him money, but it is clear from Luckys side of the conversation that his friends want nothing to do with him and refuse to help.  Lucky then scrolls to the last name in his phone, Toby, and hesitates for a moment before calling, only to be told he has insufficient credit on his phone.  Lucky goes to a store to buy phone credit but is disheartened to learn he doesn’t have enough cash, so he buys some food instead before leaving.  Later that night Lucky is lying on top of his piano with his head on his bag, once again listening to video we saw earlier.  This time we hear more, with the woman saying that she’s been talking to the others and that after eight years it’s time for him to come home.  We then cut to a flashback of a piano being smashed with a club and someone attacking Lucky, before going back to the present and seeing Lucky wake up in a panic, taking one of his pills before leaving the package on top of his bag. Then, after using the rest of his money to buy beer from Paul, an alcoholic who is leaving the hospital, Lucky sneaks back in and steals the keys to the ute as well as fifty dollars from Megs bag while Meg is asleep in the waiting room. We then see Lucky grab his bag from the back of the ute and drive away, not noticing that his pills have fallen onto the ground.  The next morning Meg leaves the hospital with her arm in a cast and looks around deflated as she notices that Lucky has left with the ute.  However shortly after this we hear an engine rumble and Lucky pulls back up to the hospital, offering Meg a chocolate croissant and asking her what the diagnosis is.  Meg takes the opportunity to call Lucky a cockwomble, before telling him that she has a broken radius and that she is his one in a million.  The two of them drive off as the show title comes up over the desert road and Meg tells Lucky that he owes her fifty bucks.

## **Quotes**

Lucky: What's your name?
Meg: Meg
Lucky: Is that short for Meghan? or...
Meg: Nah, it's short for Steve

Paul: My soul hurts
Nurse: That's your liver Paul

Paul: I used to play the oboe. Of all the fucking things – the duck.

Lucky: What's the diagnosis?
 Meg: It's bad - you're a cockwomble

## **Music in this episode**

Tim switches stations in the car in the first scene - the songs heard are:

* "Give me all your Love" - Massiti / Sauke
* "Pariah" - Jason Bowld
* "Back in the Saddle Soon" - Meegan / Tobin
* "My Sweet Jesus" - Major Wiley
* "What Family is For" - Hubbard/Owens, performed by Fin de Siecle

When Lucky is first in the yute with Meg, the song that is doing his head in is "Golden Era" - Briggs. Briggs and Tim Minchin collaborated on a song during lockdown, which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nZQRt4BXr8

The music playing in the shop where Lucky fails to get phone credit is "Wanna Be Up" - Chantoozies

After Lucky steals money from Meg's wallet and drives off, the music playing is "Get Free" - The Vines

Music over the end credits:

* "Livin' Thing" - Jeff Lynne (ELO - reference from Lucky's monologue about hay bales)
* "Golden Era" - Briggs

## **Interesting Stuff**

Tim posted the original first scene on his Instagram feed in July 2020, commenting

"It's weird going back and looking at scripts. Often what you end up with on screen is completely different from what you wrote. And at other times, it's pretty frickin' recognizable. (Although thank Christ @roblwood changed the colour of the tarp) #upright2019

Paul's line *"I used to play the oboe. Of all the fucking things – the duck!"* is a reference to Prokovief's "Peter and the Wolf" - a narrated symphony for children in which different animals are each represented by an instrument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter\_and\_the\_Wolf
 People telling Lucky that they used to play an instrument is a recurring theme through season 1 of Upright.

1. ↑ "Give me all your Love" - Massiti / Sauke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvPcG9GWHho
2. ↑ "Pariah" - Jason Bowld

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T9v4vf3Kbo
3. ↑ "Back in the Saddle Soon" - Meegan / Tobin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW9Db0m4s4w
4. ↑ "My Sweet Jesus" - Major Wiley

httAfterps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwEkD9xbrEI
5. ↑ "What Family is For" - Hubbard/Owens, performed by Fin de Siecle
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Golden Era" - Briggs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meEWSsiArA4
7. ↑ "Wanna Be Up" - Chantoozies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDN\_8g2S62s
8. ↑ "Get Free" - The Vines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asOvnGHwtDU
9. ↑ "Livin' Thing" - Jeff Lynne

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvBOZCrJsAI