Pilot

**Pilot** is the first episode of Motherland and is pre-Season One. The episode premiered September 6th 2016 to 1.74 million viewers, and was met well by critics, which led to the BBC ordering a full series, which aired in November of the next year.

## Plot

After her mother refuses to babysit anymore, working mother Julia faces a childcare crisis. Meanwhile, Amanda arranges a spag bol dinner, and Liz has a grisly accident.

## Summary

### On The School Run

On her daily school run, Julia is in the car with her two children, Ivy and James, and they are late for school, fighting over a bop-it toy. Julia is able to take it off them, and make a work-call, telling them she will be late. Shortly after, she encounters a temporary traffic-light in the middle of the road, despite there being no roadworks and no other cars around. Frustrated, she ignores it and drives ahead just as another car pulls out and meets her head-on. Another car piles in behind, and Julia proceeds to have a meltdown.

### At The School

When Julia finally arrives at school she is met by a teacher who asks if she has a meeting with the headteacher, Mrs Lawson. Confused, Julia looks around and realises the classrooms are all empty, chairs on tables, no coats in the cloak room. The teacher asks if she forgot it was half term, and Julia, too embarrassed to admit it, declares she had an appointment with the head.

In Mrs Lawson's office, Julia invents a story: that Ivy is being bullied. When Mrs Lawson asks who by, Julia looks at the wall where a student has created some art, and reads the name Leo Martin. Mrs Lawson explains that Leo Martin is only five, and Julia proceeds to call him an evil child prodigy, accusing him of playing mind games with Ivy and tapping into her insecurities, also that he "said something about her online."

Mrs Lawson decides to call Leo Martin's parents, when Julia stops her and says she had better check the facts with Ivy first, as she can be manipulative herself. On her way out, Julia asks if there are any clubs her children can go to over half term, or even right now, and it's clear she's desperate to get rid of them. However, the head tells her they have nothing on and Julia is made to leave.

### At Marion's House

Julia pulls in outside her mother's house and raps the door angrily. She then looks through the front window to see her mother's foot sticking out behind the sofa. Worried that she'd had a fall, Julia asks if she is alright, when the foot quickly disappears and she realises that her mother, Marion, was just hiding from her.

After convincing her mother to open the door, Julia expresses her anger at her mother, who says she only just got back from holiday, even though Paul saw her in Waitrose two days ago. When Julia tries to give Ivy and James to Marion, Marion refuses and says Julia that she can't look after them anymore. Julia attempts to negotiate but fails, and angrily declares that Marion won't be seeing her grandchildren again.

Back in the car, Julia phones her husband, Paul, desperate to find someone to look after the children. He tells her that he is not available, but that whatever she does, he will be "right behind her."

### At The Café

Liz tells her son, Charlie, that he won't be getting an iPad for Christmas because Santa doesn't do them; that the elves don't have the technology. She then returns to her seat beside her friend Kevin, a stay-at-home dad, who tells her about a breastfeeding incident, and leaves to ask Amanda and her gang about it, despite Liz protesting and telling him they don't want him at the "big table."

Julia arrives in the café and joins Liz and Kevin (after he returns from the alpha mum's table). After overhearing how the alpha mums have each others backs and mind each other's children, she orders for Ivy and James to go play with Amanda's child, Manus, then approaches the big table and remarks how well James, Ivy and Manus are getting along. Amanda invites Julia to sit down at the expense of Anne, and tells her how she admires Julia's ability to "switch off her family" and focus on her work, saying that she would just hate herself too much. Julia then goes to say she *does* hate herself, but Amanda insists that she would "really, really" hate herself.

Out of nowhere, Anne declares that she would die for her kids. Julia, clearly uncomfortable, agrees. When Amanda receives a notification on her phone, she asks Anne to look after her children while she goes to sort something out. Anne says she can't, when Julia abruptly offers to do so, in return for Amanda to look after her children on Thursday. After hesitating briefly, Amanda agrees and invites Julia to a spag bol dinner for later.

### At Liz's Flat

Liz invites Julia, her children, and Amanda's children, back to her flat, where they discuss work and childcare. Julia explains how starving she is when Liz decides to make a pizza for the children, but runs out, and there isn't enough for Julia. She offers to make her a cheese sandwich, then pulls a great block of cheese out the freezer. While trying to cut it, Liz curses and tells Julia to call for a taxi: she just cut her finger off.

Julia immediately starts to panic, but eventually calls her a taxi to go to the hospital. Julia finds herself alone at Liz's house with no food (as it's all frozen) with even more kids, as she now has all of Liz's. She sees Kevin from the café outside with his two daughters, and waves him upstairs, calling him "Keith!"

Kevin comes up and helps clean the blood off the worktop, before hearing about Amanda's spag bol from Julia. They decide to go, with the children of Kevin, Amanda, Julia, and Liz.

### At Amanda's House

Julia, Kevin and the children arrive at Amanda's house and receive a cold welcome from her husband. They then enter the kitchen where many of the alpha mums are lounging, and after meeting Amanda again, Julia explains what happened to Liz and that Kevin is also there. Amanda serves alcohol and begrudgingly lets Kevin stay, despite her prejudice for him.

Julia sits down and speaks with Anne, who tells her that the reason the alpha mums dislike Liz is because she slept with Melissa's husband, which surprises Julia who didn't think she was the type to do that. Shortly after, Liz arrives but tells everyone not to worry, and that she is just here to pick up her kids. When Amanda asks her how her finger is, Liz says that it still works, then sticks her middle finger up. Amanda then tells Liz she might as well stay as the party has turned into a "bit of a free-for-all", meaning Kevin's unexpected arrival.

Time passes, and Julia grows hungrier and hungrier, having not eaten all day. When the spag bol is eventually served, Julia quickly realises that Amanda is not serving the adults, and she resorts to eating the scraps from children's bowls and eating out of the bin... until Amanda catches her and humiliates her, falsely apologising for not cooking for her. Amanda then mockingly offers Julia an omelette, and Liz chips in that she would like one as well. Unaware of the dense mood, Kevin rushes in from the toilet and asks what's happening; Liz tells him Amanda is making omelette and he asks for one too.

When Kevin tells Liz why the alpha mums dislike her, she makes a loud fuss and explains that it was nineteen years ago when she slept with Melissa's "fat" husband, presumably before they even married. She then demands of Anne that her son, Darius, accepts the invitation to Charlie's birthday party as it will break his heart if his best friend cannot be there. Frightened, Anne accepts. Liz storms out.

Shortly after, Julia leaves and, trying to get back on good terms with Amanda, compliments her omelette and asks for the recipe. "Egg" is the cold response she gets, and when Julia asks about childcare on Thursday, Amanda says it won't work for her anymore and slams the door. Julia, Kevin and Liz then walk grimly down the road and decide they don't need the alpha mums; that they have their own little gang.

## Cast

### Main

* Anna Maxwell Martin, in the role of Julia
* Diane Morgan, in the role of Liz
* Paul Ready, in the role of Kevin
* Lucy Punch, in the role of Amanda

### Recurring

* Philipa Dunne, in the role of Anne
* Oliver Chris, in the role of Paul
* Ellie Haddington, in the role of Marion
* Connie Wilkins, in the role of Ivy

### Guest

* Terry Mynott, in the role of Johnny, called Ian in this episode.

## Notes

* This episode follows a different format to others and follows an entire day of Julia's as she goes on a "journey" between different households, collecting more children as she does.
* Compared to the rest of the series, Liz's hair is a much tamer shade of red.
* Amanda's husband is called Ian in this episode, but in the rest of the series is Johnny.
* Liz cuts off her forefinger, but when she goes to Amanda's spag bol is seen with a bandaged middle finger.
* It is not known if this episode matches the American pilot made in 2011.
* The BBC decided to release the screenplay used in the shoots of this episode. It is available here.
* 1,540,000 viewers tuned in to watch the pilot episode of "Motherland", making it the fifteenth most watched programme on BBC2 for the period 5th - 11th September 2016.
* Liz mentions two other shows, *I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here* and *Downton Abbey*.
* The pilot is 28 minutes long, with an aspect ratio of 16:9.
* Motherland was originally intended to be an American show but after its pilot was rejected by ABC in 2011, the writers edited and rewrote the script and turned it into a British sitcom.
* Motherland is shot in Acton and Chiswick, both in West London. The school is a real school, Southfield Primary School.